Moby has released Everything Was Beautiful, And Nothing Hurt (The EastWest Sessions), a dynamic live re-recording of tracks from his critically praised studio album by the same name which was released earlier this year. Stream the new album below!
In conjunction with the album release, Moby has also shared a new video for “The Sorrow Tree” which features the live version of the Everything Was Beautiful… track. The striking video was directed by Rob Bralver, the same director who helmed videos for “This Wild Darkness,” “Mere Anarchy” and “Like A Motherless Child.”
The Sorrow Tree has also been re-recorded by longtime Moby back-up singer Julie Mintz.
Following a handful of incredibly rare live performances in Los Angeles and New York this spring, Moby and his band decamped to Hollywood’s fabled EastWest Studios which produced a number of Frank Sinatra hits, The Beach Boys’s seminal album Pet Sounds, and The Mamas and The Papas’s iconic California Dreamin’.
Reflecting upon his desire to re-record the album, Moby says, ‘the album doesn’t really have any guitars on it and the drums are almost all programmed or sampled. When we added live drums and distorted live guitars, it took on a My Bloody Valentine sonic quality. I was surprised at how these delicate, melodic songs on the record sounded when they were played very loud with this wall of sound. The Jesus & Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine, for me at least, introduced the idea that distortion could be beautiful. Working on the live versions of these songs I was inspired by that idea.’