Moby - I Like To Score (Mute)

What with Concrete Records' Sentialement Votre, David Arnold's Bondage epics and even Black Dog's Bullit reversions, recent months have certainly seen overkill on the dance/theme tune crossover. And now Moby's in on the act with his first new album in some time, consisting entirely of his movie soundtrack contributions from past and present. I Like To Score is certainly a mixed bag, not least because of the older tracks thrown in and the fact that Moby claims he rarely goes to see films and that most of his movie music have been performed just for the huge paycheques on offer!

The most recent tracks certainly stand out. 'Novio' from the new Joel Silver flick Double Tap is a seminal opener and leads perfectly into the mellow introduction of Moby's new take on the classic 'James Bond Theme'. But as soon as the intro's over it's downhill. This is one classic theme that can't stand to be beaten up into the big beat style, with additional production from Depeche Mode's Alan Moulder and Mute's Daniel Miller removing any original subtleties. With other new Bond themes floating around from Pulp and even Sheryl Crow, the producers are beginning to look desperate. What they should have done was go straight to Grantby, whose John Barry-esque 'Timber' was a chill out highlight of last year.

Of the older tracks on offer, 'Go' - the track that sampled David Lynch's Twin Peaks and launched Moby on the international platform - never fails to impress. Way back before the Saint and countless other recent films began mining the rich veins of electronica to sell their soundtracks, 1992's Brad Pitt film Cool World featured the likes of FSOL, My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult and two tracks from the man himself. But bizarrely, the Moby-defining 'Next Is The E' has been ignored for this compilation in favour of the frankly annoying 'Ah Ah'. It hasn't dated at all well (but then I never liked it much at the time). More recently recorded soundtrack excerpts don't suffer as much at the hands of time as, since then, Moby has moved away from full on contemporary sounds to use much rock and guitar thrashing. Hence the inclusion of the Spanish musings of 'Nash' and a cover of Joy Division's 'New Dawn Fades' from the Robert De Niro near-turkey 'Heat'.

I Like To Score is the perfect illustration of why I find a Moby album so infuriating. On one hand there's tracks I can't bear to listen to (the Mike Oldfield sound-alike yawnathon 'Love Theme', the hi-NRG 'Oil 1' and the aforementioned-mentioned 'Ah Ah'). But on the other hand there are brain-twistingly emotional anthems and ambient masterpieces ('God Moving Over The Face Of The Waters' from Heat 'Grace' from Space Water Onion and 'First Cool Hive' from Scream) that make me want to proclaim the genius of Moby from the rooftops. What's a reviewer to do? Maybe just ignore the bad bits rather than risk becoming schizophrenic? 9/10


This review also published in: DJ magazine