Moby and Last Night

"A night out can ideally contain a multitude of experiences, from the celebratory to the despairing to the comforting to the frightening to the conventional to the transcendent. Very simply, to me this record sounds like a night out in New York, with all of the sex and the weirdness and the disorientation and the celebration and the compelling chaos. If you're out some night in NYC, I'm sure we'll run into each other. See, I go out way too much and always have."

-Moby, on Last Night

I can really think of no other techno/electonic artist who has remained on the scene and retained as much visibility as Moby. I can also think of no other techno artist who did more to bring the genre into the mainstream and serve as the face of a throughly impersonal art form. Three years after releasing his last album of new material, Hotel, Moby is back with Last Night.

It's something of a conceptual album as it's supposed to represent an entire night out in the span of roughly 60 minutes. According to Moby, he "wanted to make an album that was a little more playful, a little more reflective of [his] life as it actually is." That being said, the beginning of the album is a total throw-back (in more ways than one). First off, they're total house cuts that will remind you of Moby's earliest work that was straight out of the clubs. Secondly, the second track, I Love to Move In Here (listen below), teams Moby up with truly legendary old school rapper, Grandmaster Caz of the Cold Crush Brothers, the man who provided most of the rhymes for hip-hop's first big hit, The Sugarhill Gang's Rappers' Delight.

As you get deeper into the album, the tracks shift from the dance floor to the more sublime, from the physical to the astral. Again, this work also hearkens back to some of his previous ambient work. About the only period of his career that he doesn't return to here is the hard-rock guitar work from Animal Rights. Along with Grandmaster Caz stopping in to add to the album, Nabila Benladghem, a Algerian French (my apologies Nabila!) vocalist graces the seventh track, Hyena (offered below), with her hypnotic voice.

The album comes out tomorrow (April 1st) here in the states. While you're counting down, enjoy the following tracks.

Moby - I Love to Move In Here : Last Night

Moby - Hyenas : Last Night

Visit his website, his label Mute Records, and become his friend on MySpace.

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Cold Crush Brothers - The Cold Crush Brothers At The Dixie : Wild Style Soundtrack

Grandmaster Caz - South Bronx Subway Rap : Wild Style Soundtrack

The Sugar Hill Gang - Rapper's Delight : Sugar Hill Gang