Pages tagged “moby”

I've said it so many times, but it still sounds surreal: There are more than 27 million slaves on this earth, more than existed in during any point in the trans-Atlantic slave trade 200 years ago. About 80% of those are women and children. No government officially condones it, but even in America, kids are trafficked from other countries or from state to state, forced into prostitution with the threat of harm or death. My own city of Atlanta is one of the Top 10 in the nation for human trafficking. There have been several good fictional films dealing with this issue lately, including Trade, Holly and Eastern Promises. But the most inspiring film dealing with this topic is coming out this fall—Justin Dillon's Call+Response.

Don't call it a midlife crisis. Moby's Last Night, released in April of this year, was high-concept and highly ambitious, seeking to take "25 years of going out in NYC and condensing it into a 65-minute record."

More recently, on July 8, the lovable DJ, producer and vegan released a 12-song digital EP I Love to Move in Here, consisting wholly in remixes of the eponymous track, also Last Night's third single.

We caught up with Moby shortly before he played the closing party for the Film Festival.

Once known as the man behind the screen (when all 18 of Play’s tracks found their way into commercials), Moby recently walked out in front of it for the Internet/television media monolith known as Current TV.

On Monday morning, Moby appeared on Current’s The Daily Fix, which the network describes as “television’s first music blog.” The balderkind described scoring Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales and talked about Mute labelmates Goldfrapp. If you missed Monday’s segment, check it out here, and if you want more Moby, don’t fret! He’ll be back on The Daily Fix next Monday.

Related links:
Moby.com
Moby on MySpace
Current.com

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It's no secret that DVR technology has commercial producers running scared. With the previously unimagined power of being able to fast forward through pesky ads at the consumer's fingertips, TV commercial writers have to fight more than ever for viewers' attentions.

But what's this... a pale white knight on the horizon? Why, it's Moby, the undisputed master of TV commercial background music! You just know that the ad industry has been salivating for this guy to reemerge with some of those sweet, sweet sounds ever since Hotel underwhelmed listeners in 2005. On March 10, those suits and music fans alike will be treated to a new Moby release, entitled Last Night.

NME.com has a few details: Last Night contains fifteen tracks, includes several guest rappers, and is more "dance oriented." Moby attributes the sonic shift to doing more DJ work as of late. His latest DJ set is coming up on Dec. 6 at New York's Hiro Ballroom, where Moby has taken up a residency over the past couple of months. Uncut reports that the album's first single is entitled "Everyday It's 1989," but no other track titles have hit the presses just yet.

Related links:
Moby.com
Paste Dischord: Moby's Hotel
YouTube: Moby - "Natural Blues"

Got news tips for Paste? Email news@pastemagazine.com.

Since suddenly Moby has announced a pile of things recently, the best way to sum up his activities seems to be a wide-sweeping, all-purpose Moby update. First, and perhaps most important to his fans, is that Moby let slip the name of his next album, Last Night to NME. Whittled down from 400 tracks, the album will be Moby's first full-length album since 2005's Hotel. According to the bald one himself, "It's much more electronic and dance-oriented than my last three records," and includes, "some techno songs that sound like buildings falling down." Well, cool. So long as those falling buildings have a sweet bass line, that could be a huge hit at the clubs next year.

Clubs including the Hiro Ballroom in NYC where Moby is hosting his own club nights. Moby will be DJing there himself on these evenings, dubbed "Degenerates," and will be joined this Thursday for the inagural event by The Juan MacLean, Stretch Armstrong and Alex Frankel. "When I was growing up in Manhattan in the early 80's you could go dancing anywhere: area, fallout shelter, danceteria, etc.," Moby writes on his website. "Now in 2007 your options for a degenerate night out dancing in Manhattan are more limited. with this in mind, I wanted to start a fun and dirty and eclectic night of dance music, called 'Degenerates.' Hopefully on the night people will somehow be inspired by the name."

For those wondering what will be happening to 380 of those prospective tracks Moby was working on, we've got a bit of a hunch. He just released the "Moby Gratis" program, where filmmakers can use his tracks for free on any non-profit or non-commercial film. Or, should they need them for a low budget independent feature, he's offering cheap licenses with the profits donated to charity. Anyone involved in making independent film can tell you how much of a pain music licensing can be, so it's great to see an artist supporting other art forms like this.

But that's not the only way that Moby's been working with the world of film lately. In fact, the soon-to-be-actually-released Southland Tales will feature a score by the eletronica mastermind. He'll also be speaking at the South by Southwest Film Conference & Festival at a talk called, suitably enough, "A Conversation with Moby," about his work on films (e.g. the Bourne franchise and Michael Mann movies), and probably the gratis project as well.

Whew, that's a lot. But the Moby that this reporter's been listening to most, though, has been linked to another visual art form. The Bioshock EP was a tie-in with the collector's edition version of the game, featuring remixes of three tracks from the game by Moby and Oscar the Punk. Ok, not exactly breaking news like the rest, but a remix of Billie Holiday by Moby is something that fans shouldn't miss out on. It should help tide you over until spring 2008 when his next real album hits the shelves.

Related links:
MobyGratis.com
Moby.com
Paste's review of Hotel

Got news tips for Paste? Email news@pastemagazine.com.

Free HBO
by Arye Dworken

Poor Moby. Lord knows it’s not easy being bald, vegan and sensitive. He wears glasses, drinks tea (even has his own line of herbal beverages), and endures routine verbal attacks for no apparent reason other than being Moby. But the man born Richard Melville Hall has always acknowledged his inner-wimp faster than you can say, “How much will I get paid exactly if my tune scores your commercial?” In a January 30 blog entry, Moby reminds readers he’s “the first to admit that I’m not a tough guy.” His newest release, Hotel, hinges on the deadly accuracy of this statement.

This 14-song outing kicks off with the melancholic “Raining Again,” continues with an ethereal cover of New Order’s “Temptation” and ends with “Homeward Angel,” a funereal-sounding number. Eschewing his trademark blues-flavored samples in favor of his own vocals, Moby composed the entire record from scratch—a truly bold move for the veteran New York DJ. And while his singing voice wouldn’t likely earn him much favor before an American Idol judging panel, he compensates with earnestness and authenticity. Your vegan-bashing, bald-hating, coffee-snob friends may find plenty to ridicule about Melville’s latest, but Moby means well. He wants nothing more than to move the citizens of our war-mongering world, and that, my friend, is a worthy pursuit.

Smells Like B.O.
by Jeff Leven

I don’t even know where to start. This disc lost me at hello and only got worse. I could deal with it being an underpowered, technically regressive, lazily assembled turd of an album and not lose my cool. I could deal with this album being lyrically hackneyed and conceptually pointless. I could even chuckle at the smarmy hubris of including a full extra disc of dentist-office, stale-and-sterile “ambient” music (how this differs much from the main disc is something I’m still working out). But the syrupy blasphemy of Moby’s godawful attack on New Order’s classic “Temptation” got me fighting mad. Dammit.

Hotel, with its consistently limp tempos, ignores almost all the collagist techniques and sonic innovations in electronica (if you can still use that term to describe Moby’s music) since, oh, about 1994. But here’s what galls me the most: if anyone less famous than Moby mailed this CD out as a demo it would become a coaster (or ad hoc ashtray) in seconds flat. Even if you’re one of those misguided folks who thought Play was something special, you’ve got to admit that whatever slack its popularity earned Moby doesn’t begin to justify the ham-fisted pop crappery he’s been slavering on us ever since. I’m checking out of this Hotel before someone tells me I can never leave.

Reader's Poll Results

Free HBO (aka, I dig it!): 42%
Smells Like B.O. (Moby, please stop making records!): 58%