Mocky

Based in Los Angeles, Canadian-born producer, composer, and musician Mocky works within a wide set of parameters that encompasses soul, jazz, classical, pop, Afro-beat, funk, and myriad other styles. Part of the collective of Canadian musicians who also include Jamie Lidell, Feist, Gonzales, and Peaches, Mocky’s eclectic solo discography ranges from the mischievous quasi-rap of 2001′s In Mesopotamia to more sophisticated, loungey singer/songwriter works like 2009′s Saskamodie and 2015′s Key Change. He has also ventured into soundtrack work on the Japanese anime series Carole & Tuesday. In 2021, he combined his orchestral and pop worlds on the stunning score-like suite Overtones for the Omniverse, then followed it a year later with the uplifting Goosebumps Per Minute, Vol. 1.
Born Dominic Salole in Saskatchewan, Canada, Mocky has lived the life of a nomad, alighting in Toronto and London before settling down in Berlin in the 2000s. Following two EPs, 1999′s Soul Control and 2000′s You’re Not Crazy, he made his full-length debut with 2001′s In Mesopotamia, an album of quirky electro-funk. This was followed by 2004′s Are + Be, the first Mocky album to feature appearances by frequent collaborators Jamie Lidell and Feist. In 2005, Mocky contributed to Lidell’s widely acclaimed breakthrough album Multiply. He then released third full-length Navy Brown Blues in 2006.
Mocky kept busy writing and producing for Feist, Jane Birkin, and Nikka Costa, among many others. He returned in 2009 with the Crammed Discs-issued Saskamodie, easily his most mature effort at that point, shifting away from funk and rap toward lounge, orchestral soul, jazz, and other genres. Saskamodie proved to be somewhat of a breakthrough record, earning him universally positive reviews and raves from Pitchfork and the BBC. Mocky spent the next several years producing and co-writing with various acts, and in 2011 composed the soundtrack for the Chinese film UFO in Her Eyes.
An experimental solo EP called The Graveyard Novelas was released in 2013, and two years later, following a move to Los Angeles, he delivered his full-length follow-up, the ambitious orchestral pop of Key Change. Following several additional EPs, billed as “Moxtapes,” as well as work with artists including Kelela, Mr. Oizo, and Selah Sue, Mocky compiled rarities on the 2018 LP Music Save Me (One More Time), and released the live-in-studio album A Day at United. He also wrote the music for the anime series Carole & Tuesday, which premiered in 2019. Released in 2021, Overtones for the Omniverse was an enchanting orchestral suite with detours into Tropicalia that Mocky recorded in the same Los Angeles studio as its spiritual forebear, Stevie Wonder’s classic Songs in the Key of Life. After this, he began issuing a series of uptempo instrumental singles that were later collected into 2022′s Goosebumps Per Minute, Vol. 1. ~ Jason Thurston & Paul Simpson