[PEN-L:8353] Moby

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Moby has just come out with a terrific follow up to his 1995 techno classic
"Everything is Wrong." Titled "Play", it blends black gospel and blues
samplings with the customary synthesizer and electronic percussion typical
of this genre. As in his first album, Moby adds his own vocals and guitar
work on top of the mix.

Techno is the kind of music played at discos and "raves". Meant to be
trance-inducing, it relies on a heavy ostinato effect of the kind used
effectively by Ravel in Bolero, a prototype for techno. It probably got its
initial inspiration from the German group Kraftwerk, who wrote ironic icy
hymns to the modern technological age such as "Homecomputer", "Pocket
Calculator" and "Radioactivity". Classical music minimalism has also had a
major impact on techno, especially Philip Glass and Steve Reich. Glass has
recorded with David Bowie and a group of DJ's have just recorded a not very
good CD of disco versions of Reich classics such as "Suite for 18
Musicians". I suspect that minimalist Gavin Bryars has influenced the
conception behind Moby's latest. Bryar's composition "Jesus' Blood Never
Failed Me Yet" is a 15 minute variation on the street song of a tramp, who
is sampled throughout the piece.

Moby does the same sort of thing with his sampling of Vera Hall's "Trouble
So Hard", a gospel song recorded in the field by Alan Lomax, as well as
"Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad" by the Shining Light Gospel Choir. Of
course, none of this would be worthy of attention if the music wasn't
inspired. And inspired it is.

The other noteworthy thing about Moby is his outspoken left politics which
have a completely different character than Rage Against the Machine's
militancy. Moby is a vegan, Christian, pacifist, environmentalist and
anticapitalist. In the liner notes to "Everything is Wrong", his first
record, he includes "facts that I've collected". Among them are: From
1960-1985 over 40% of the Central American rainforests were destroyed to
create grazing land for cattle; the United States imports over 100,000 tons
of beef from Central America each year; it takes a 23 gallons of water to
produce a pound of tomatoes; it takes 5,214 gallons to produce a pound of
beef.

In the liner notes to "Play", he denounces anti-abortionists despite his
Christian beliefs. "Speaking of those who preach hate and violence, I need
to say how absolutely horrified and sickened I am by supposed Christians
who promote the use of violence against abortion clinics, doctors, the
federal government and anybody else who rubs them the wrong way."

There is very little question that if a mass socialist movement emerges in
the US, artists like Moby and Rage Against the Machine will find a way into
it, just as Paul Robeson participated in the broad radical movement of the
1930s and 40s and artists like Milton Nascimento campaign for the Workers
Party in Brazil today.

Moby has a webpage at http://www.moby.org. Check it out.


Louis Proyect
(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)