LP, 180g
Columbia (2013) US
Cosmic forces were at work when MGMT's co-founders, Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser met over ten years ago at Wesleyan University. Drawn together by a mutual love of mystic paganism, the duo signed to Columbia Records in the eve of 2006. On a mission to sprinkle the music industry with weirdness and unpredictability the band delivered their debut album Oracular Spectacular in 2008. The record garnered the band three Grammy nominations, along with numerous accolades across the globe, including landing at #18 on Rolling Stone magazine's Top 100 albums of the decade.
Now MGMT is back with their self-titled third studio album which finds VanWyngarden and Goldwasser continuing to push themselves to expand the boundaries of modern pop music. Returning to Tarbox Road Studios to work with longtime collaborator Dave Fridmann (co-producer and mixer of Oracular Spectacular and Congratulations, The Flaming Lips, Tame Impala), the duo experimented with various in-studio writing processes, allowing the music to tell them where it wanted to go.
The result is a diverse and powerful collection of 10 songs (including a cover of "Introspection" by 1960’s psych band Faine Jade) that directly mirrors the duo's encompassing surrealist view of the everyday. Album opener "Alien Days," has been hailed as an instant MGMT classic by fans and described by Rolling Stone as a “shimmering, psychedelic soundscape” and Spin as “a sumptuously detailed, exquisitely zonked- out space-rock construction.”