Museum of Love – 7th Level Music

Review: Museum of Love – Life of Mammals

Part-krautrock, post-house, part-funk, part-art rock, part…I don’t know what, Museum of Love‘s Life of Mammals is weird and wild.

“Your Nails Have Grown,” for instance, starts the album with Pat Mahoney and Dennis McNany‘s mechaniker krautrock synths for beats and lyrics about someone lost to time, and the extended, haunting saxophone solo by Peter Gordon is outstanding. The title track brings in ambient synths to blend with funky bass and hand percussion beats. It’s a song about facing reality and casting out illusions (“It’s a shocking truth. You were raised by wolves, but never told that rabbits eat their youth.”).

“Marching Orders” is a highly danceable track (those killer beats!), with a whistled chorus and lyrics about retreating into stability and walking away from chaos and the rat race. “Hotel at Home” could be a song about touring or living in quarantine with lyrics like “Everything you’ve done is washed away. This room wasn’t really yours anyway. Curl up and watch. Lockup extended stay.”

“Cluttered World” is a sauntering, sexy track about cutting away attachments in hopes of filling up the space in our homes and heads with better pleasures. “Ridiculous Body,” with its swaying bass and tense drums, is a witty take on toxic beauty and the ravages of time. “Flat Side” has dark-wave elements in its synths and lyrics about patience in love. The guitar on it soars like a robot hawk.

“Army of Children” is a song about regret, and not being able to fix bad habits (“When we met I was a picturesque wreck hanging around your neck…Why can I ever seem to stick to the plan?”). The addition of country guitars and Edwyn Collins-like vocals gives a cool, bluesy feel to the track, even when dance drums walk into the room. Bold horns and bouncing synth-beats propel “The Conversation,” which tells the tale of a talk going out of control in rapid time. The album closes with “Almost Certainly Not You,” in which we hear the tale of a relationship in which someone claims they’ve been telling the truth the whole time, not the other. The song is punctuated by finger snaps and synths that feel like sunlight breaking through cigarette smoke.

A lot of the album sounds like that image feels: Mysterious, yet bright. Angry, yet cheeky. Stealthy, yet bold. It’s a winner any way you slice it.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Patrick at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Museum of Love give us our “Marching Orders” with their new single.

Museum Of Love – the New York-based duo of Pat Mahoney and Dennis McNany – shares the new single/video, “Marching Orders,” from their forthcoming album, Life Of Mammals, out July 9th on Skint Records. It follows lead single/video “Cluttered World” and their “Cluttered World / Marching Orders (Remixed)” EP featuring remixes by Parrot and Cocker Too and Justin Van Der Volgen. “Marching Orders” starts with an irresistible cowbell driven rhythm track. It builds with a propulsive bass riff, a casually whistled melody, and a whole studio load of chaos. Combined together, it’s a hypnotic musical invitation to join Museum of Love’s carnival procession that’s part Blackstar, part NYC block party and part after hours smash up at Mardi Gras.

The video, featuring footage deconstructed and edited by Shaun MacDonald, “is a hallucinogenic dreamscape describing the collective feelings everyone went through over the last year of the pandemic,” says Museum Of Love. “All of us feeling crammed in our tiny apartments like an elephant in a tiny tea house. Time and reality, not computing for many of us.”

Watch Museum Of Love’s Video for “Marching Orders”

Life Of Mammals is a dizzying swirl of chaotic art rock and metronomic dance music. The creative process for Life Of Mammals was approached like an art project while the lyrics throughout are delightfully elliptical, with a thousand valid interpretations. The album was recorded in bursts between Mahoney’s LCD Soundsystem touring commitments. It has been mixed in its entirety by James Murphy (LCD Soundsystem/DFA) and features guest appearances from legendary saxophonist and Arthur Russell collaborator Peter Gordon (The Love of Life Orchestra) and Matt Shaw.

If you’ve ever imagined what a band influenced by Scott Walker, John Cale, Jonathan Richman, dub, Robert Wyatt, post-punk and Krautrock might sound like, then you might finally have your answer – Museum Of Love. Weird, perhaps, but also enormous knockabout fun, at times approaching their song craft with the bombast of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” the outlook of the Marx brothers and matched with the production knowledge of a Basic Channel record. A bewitching combination that rewards repeat listens, it’s doubtful anyone will release a more compelling and beguiling album this year.

Watch “Cluttered World” Video

Stream “Cluttered World / Marching Orders (Remixed)” EP

Pre-order Life Of Mammals

Keep your mind open.

[March on over to the subscription box while you’re here.]

[Thanks to Ahmad at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Museum of Love release 12″ remix EP.

Last month, Museum Of Love – the New York-based duo of Pat Mahoney and Dennis McNany – returned with “Cluttered World.” Today, they share its remix by Parrot and Cocker Too alongside remixes of “Marching Orders” by Justin Van Der Volgen. The 12” will be released on May 21st and is available to preorder now.

Parrot and Cocker Too are Sheffield music legends Richard Barratt (aka Crooked Man, aka DJ Parrot, one half of Sweet Exorcist) and Jarvis Cocker, who needs no introduction. Parrot and Cocker Too reimagine the claustrophobic subterranean stomp of “Cluttered World” by leading it past velvet drapes and down into the basement of a club, molding it into a futuristic torch song in the process.

Justin Van Der Volgen is a Brooklyn-based producer and DJ who runs the My Rules label. His new mixes of “Marching Orders” stretch out all the elements of the ultra-rhythmic original into a clattering, irritable whistling-led street party dub.

Listen to “Cluttered World / Marching Orders (Remix)” EP

Pat Mahoney, founder and drummer of all-conquering NYC band LCD Soundsystem, and McNany, known for his production work as Jee Day, formed Museum Of Love in 2013 and released their lauded self-titled debut the following year. Their new album, Life Of Mammals, is out July 9th on Skint Records.

“Cluttered World / Marching Orders (Remix)” EP Tracklist
1. Cluttered World (Parrot & Crocker Too Remix)
2. Marching Orders (Justin Van Der Volgen Dub)
3. Marching Orders (Justin Van Der Volgen Remix)

Watch “Cluttered World” Video

Stream “Cluttered World”

Pre-order Life Of Mammals

Keep your mind open.

[March over to the subscription box while you’re here.]

[Thanks to Ahmad at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Museum of Love take on our “Cluttered World” with their new single.

Museum Of Love – the New York-based duo of Pat Mahoney and Dennis McNany – returns with new single “Cluttered World” on Skint Records. Produced by the duo and mixed by James Murphy (DFA / LCD Soundsystem), “Cluttered World” is a super-futuristic torch song — it takes you by the hand and leads you down, down into a subterranean basement, all thick air and close heat. It pulls up a stool somewhere between the grand piano and the quaking bass bins and sets you right in the heart of the action. It’s a wild and disorientating place, yet it’s one you’ll want to return to again and again each time the drum track stops. “The song is about labor in the 21st century, and drifting and sifting through the hyper-abundance of our so called civilization,” explains Museum Of Love.

Stream “Cluttered World”

Mahoney, founder and drummer of LCD Soundsystem, and McNany, known for his production work as Jee Day, formed Museum Of Love in 2013 and released their lauded self-titled debut the following year. “Cluttered World” is their first taste of new music to come later this year.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Patrick at Pitch Perfect PR.]