Moby

What was the impetus behind the album’s concept - one long night out with your friends?

Well, I mean I’ve got my studio here in my home and almost every day I go in there and I work on music and slowly as I was working on this record, basically there were two records coming out of it - one that was very quiet and very subdued and one that was more dance-oriented – and as the dance-oriented one started taking shape, I realised rather than just make it like a collection of random dance tracks, I did want to give it some sort of narrative arc or some sort of theme, whether or not anyone else will ever pick up on that, I have no idea, but for me, it just represents going out in New York City, which, for better or worse, I spend a lot of time doing and so I wanted it to have that just somehow capture the feeling of having, you know, a long night out, because going out is so complicated! It can be simple, you know, like I guess in certain parts of the world, you go out, you go to a party, you stay there for two hours, you come home, but in other parts of the world, like in the UK or in New York, it’s an endeavour, you know. It starts at 8 o’clock at night and it finished at 8 o’clock in the morning and a lot happens in between and by the end of the night things are kind of blurry and so that was sort of the impetus behind giving the record this… I hate to use this word, but giving it a concept.

Do you see “Last Night” as a return to your dance roots?

So, in making a more electronic dance record, I could either try and make something very, very progressive or I could actually make something that I really like and in this case I wanted to make a record that involved these sort of like musical idioms that I’ve always really loved. You know, whether it’s more soulful, disco or piano-driven rave anthems or quiet ambient music. These are genres that I’ve worked in a lot in the past, and one of the reasons that I’ve worked in these genres in the past is that I really love them. It’s music that I care abou