Cosmic forces were at work whenMGMT'sco-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 toColumbia Recordsin the eve of 2006. On a mission to sprinkle the music industry with weirdness and unpredictability the band delivered their debut albumOracular Spectacularin 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.
2010'sCongratulationswas conceived even beforeOracular Spectacular'srelease! The musically adventurous eclectic mixture of tracks may have sounded a little confusing to some, but that's only becauseMGMT'sunconventional pop structures reflect the chaotic vibrations of the world - and who can realistically make sense of that?Congratulationsdebuted at #2 on the US Billboard 200 and #4 in the UK, going on to become one of the most talked about albums of the past decade.
NowMGMTis 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 collaboratorDave Fridmann(co-producer and mixer ofOracular SpectacularandCongratulations, 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 instantMGMTclassic by fans and described by Rolling Stone as a “shimmering, psychedelic soundscape” and Spin as “a sumptuously detailed, exquisitely zonked- out space-rock construction.”