After the release of Reprise- Moby‘s debut album on the record label Deutsche Grammophon- in Mai 2021, a Blu-Ray special edition is now available including a CD with two bonus tracks, all including a Dolby Atmos Mix , and a Blu-Ray with the successful, unique and unconventional documentary Moby Doc by the award-winning director Rob Bralver. Along with that comes 70 minutes exclusive material featuring the making-of-production of »Porcelain«, »The Lonely Night«, »Natural Blues«, »God Moving Over The Face Of The Waters«, »Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?« and the David Bowie Cover »Heroes« as well as the music videos »Natural Blues«, »Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?« and »Extreme Ways«. On top of that, you will find a signed print of Moby’s new Little Idiot graphic as a little extra.
Moby is a world-famous producer, singer, DJ, writer and activist, who is known for his willingness and ability to experiment with different kinds of music genres. This allows him to create genuine artwork of immense diversity. He even states that his loyalty is not to one particular genre but emphasizes that music as such- no matter if it is Hip Hop, Jazz, Orchestral Music or Punk Rock- has the power to convey and communicate emotion and that the emotional effect music has on its audience is the crucial part of it. While Moby is most appreciated for his groundbreaking album Play, which is game-changing not just for fans of electronic music, very few people know that he actually started off with 80ies Hardcore Punk in his teenage years, ingrained elements of Hip Hop music into his releases under The Brotherhood, was guitarist in a Heavy Metal Band and is not at all averse to Alternative Rock. Even though his focus lies on electronic dance music, his musical past pops up every once in a while, as his punk-oriented album Animal Rights shows.
It now comes as no surprise that Moby takes a step forward to enter another genre. Already four years ago he did his first orchestral show with Los Angeles Philharmonic where he was offered to collaborate with Deutsche Grammophon. As the title of his new album suggests, he translated 30 of his greatest hits into acoustic, orchestral music. Looking back at the 1980ies when Moby was living in an abandoned factory in the middle of a crack neighborhood DJing in a dive bar, Moby never thought he would ever make an album with an orchestra for one of the oldest and most-respected record labels in the world. Moby’s musical background and knowledge of music theory prepared him well for this new challenge, though. What is striking about his new album is not just his decision to work together with the Hungarian Art Orchestra, but also his choice of musicians including Amythyst Kiah, Gregory Porter, Jim James, Kris Kristofferson, Mark Lanegan, Nataly Dawn, Skylar Grey and Víkingur Ólafsson. But why them? Moby highlights that when choosing vocalists, he is not necessarily looking for technical perfection but rather for unique voices that have a quality of experience and an emotional core which resonates with other people.
Moby Doc provides us with the artist’s reflection on his tumultuous life, on his career as a musician and on his approach towards sustainability and animal rights activism. This honest portrait allows us to gain a profound understanding of Moby’s artwork and to dive deep into the subject matter, as it gives us some insights into his past as a drug addict and underground musician. It creates a narrative as a way of communicating his experience to us and finding inner peace and understanding for himself. ‘Music saved my life.’ That is what Moby believes, when describing music as a means to express and experience emotion, to connect to the rest of the world and to escape parts of his past. Next to this exceptional documentary the Blu-Ray also contains interviews with David Lynch and David Bowie and reenactments, animations and stunning archive material definitely worth watching.
