I can imagine MGMT’s Benjamin Goldwasser and Andrew VanWygarden have recently found themselves in quite a difficult position. Their 'LateNightTales' compilation acts as an ideal bridge between the release of beautiful but very consciously oblique second album 'Congratulations', and the finishing stages of a third album (expected to be rather hit-filled after their label’s reaction to the unimpressive sales of album 2).
The mixtape-style compilation features an interesting selection of artists, and it is clear immediately on hearing the eccentric build up of amazing first track, Disco Inferno’s 'Can’t See Through It', that their 'LateNightTales', is through and through set to be a real insight into the pair and what goes into their music.
Unfortunately, it is also clear early on that MGMT were really very aware that they were aiming for a mixtape as opposed to a compilation -the tempos and styles of the first half of the songs in particular are all startlingly similar, which isn’t something I would expect to be saying about the likes of The Velvet Underground and Television Personalities. Despite the fact that the bands chosen are refreshing to see on a major release (Felt, Julian Cope), and the fact that every song here is individually brilliant, those first 10 songs seem more like an amazing example of ‘matching things up’ than one of outstandingly appropriate songs from each artist. Of course, it is debatable whether or not this a good or a bad thing-due to these similarities the songs work incredibly well as a group, but there is also barely any variation between them.
Track 11 is MGMT’s Bauhaus cover 'All We Ever Wanted Was Everything', and this is when things pick up-it’s comprised largely of addictive bouncy bass and similarly addictive strumming reminiscent of the more acoustic tracks from 'Oracular Spectacular', and it just screams out (in a positive, endearing way) "how are we going to do a pop album in a month or 2?".
From then on, the album plows on triumphantly, the last 9 songs including 'Spacemen 3' and the best Chills song, 'Pink Frost'. It’s such a shame about the soporific nature of the first few songs, by the end of the last track, 'Paul Morley', all I want to do is pick through the pair’s record collection for hours, surely the desired effect.
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The mixtape-style compilation features an interesting selection of artists, and it is clear immediately on hearing the eccentric build up of amazing first track, Disco Inferno’s 'Can’t See Through It', that their 'LateNightTales', is through and through set to be a real insight into the pair and what goes into their music.
