![\"Moby-Issue-No29\"](\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Moby-Issue-No29.jpg\")
<\/h1>\n<\/h1>\n\u201cI\u2019m an only child who lives alone and usually works alone,\u201d declares Moby flatly. The techno pioneer isn\u2019t bemoaning his lot in life\u2014 it\u2019s just his explanation of why, after more than 20 years of producing his own records, he brought in Mark \u201cSpike\u201d Stent to co-produce his 11th album, Innocents<\/i>.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like to work by myself,\u201d he says, \u201cbut I lose objectivity. The only sounding board I have is me. I thought it would be interesting to have someone else around to gain their objectivity.\u201d<\/p>\n
The choice of Stent (Madonna, Lady Gaga, Beyonc\u00e9, Muse, U2) was enhanced by their shared history. \u201cSpike and I grew up listening to the same records,\u201d says Moby. \u201cHis background is with bands like Throbbing Gristle and a lot of weird electronic music in the 1980s, and then Massive Attack and Bj\u00f6rk.\u201d Moby\u2019s trajectory similarly went from \u201980s punk rocker to international techno auteur to highly licensed hit-maker whose song \u201cExtreme Ways\u201d runs over the closing credits of all four of the Bourne<\/i> films.<\/p>\n
Another new turn on the moody, soulful Innocents<\/i> is its abundance of guest vocalists\u2014the Flaming Lips\u2019 Wayne Coyne, Skylar Grey, Cold Specks, Damien Jurado and Screaming Trees\u2019 Mark Lanegan. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t deliberate,\u201d Moby says of the star-power recruiting. \u201cThe vocalists we used were the ones who could add to the emotion of the song.\u201d<\/p>\n
The last thing Moby and Stent wanted to create was a polished pop record. To that end they brought in old analog gear, hissing tape machines, wobbly reverb units and offbeat drum machines. \u201cWhen Spike and I started, he was clear that it had to have a strong quality of vulnerability,\u201d says Moby. \u201cWhich seems contrary to the way most electronic music is made these days, which is big and bombastic\u2014and I\u2019m not saying that in a negative way. But I wanted to make a record that was vulnerable and humble. If I was a 22-year-old pop star, I might have felt differently. But I\u2019m 47 and making a record that likely won\u2019t be played on the radio.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Moby, the dodgy equipment was an uncontrollable element of imperfection that became a metaphor for human frailty. \u201cThere\u2019s the recognition that life is short and art is precious,\u201d Moby adds. \u201cSo why not just make music that moves you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013Linda Laban<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MOBY Old-school techno adds a touch of vulnerability to his latest project\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m an only child who lives alone and usually works alone,\u201d declares Moby flatly. The techno pioneer isn\u2019t bemoaning his lot in life\u2014 it\u2019s just his explanation of why, after more than 20 years of producing his own records, he brought in Mark […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[7093,2425],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11082"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11082"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11084,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11082\/revisions\/11084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}