“Why?” Life’s biggest question and, really, its most primal. It’s human nature in a word. Canadian, LA-based producer Mocky (credits include Feist and Moses Sumney, and sampled by GZA and Kanye), who has always been dedicated to curiosity and musical evolution, uses this question as the thesis for his new album Music Will Explain (Choir Music Vol. 1), his first on Stones Throw. More acutely, he asks “why do we do what we do?” specifically in the world of AI, a mark in technological evolution he either puts in quotes or punctuates with a question mark. As such, the album is centered around the human voice, captured organically and unaltered.
To accomplish this, Mocky invited friends from the Northeastern LA scene into his garage to record into a single microphone captured on a vintage tape recorder. He built and added the instrumentation around the voices, recorded live to the taped vocals, ironically providing the chorus to the vocal’s lead cast. Taking on a neo-funk vibe punctuated with steel drums, a groovy bassline, and a jangly keyboard, the album’s title track is a palpable celebration of being human and making music together.
Music Will Explain (Choir Music Vol. 1) is out today.