Mocky

Residing in Los Angeles, the Canadian-born producer, composer, and musician Mocky explores an expansive range of genres that includes soul, jazz, classical, pop, Afro-beat, funk, and many additional styles. As a member of the Canadian musician collective alongside Jamie Lidell, Feist, Gonzales, and Peaches, his varied solo output stretches from the playful near-rap of 2001's In Mesopotamia through more refined, lounge-inflected singer/songwriter albums such as 2009's Saskamodie and 2015's Key Change. He has also explored film and television scoring with the Japanese anime series Carole & Tuesday. In 2021 he merged his orchestral and pop sensibilities on the striking, score-like suite Overtones for the Omniverse, then issued the buoyant Goosebumps Per Minute, Vol. 1 the following year.

Born Dominic Salole in Saskatchewan, Canada, Mocky has followed a nomadic path, spending time in Toronto and London before establishing himself in Berlin during the 2000s. After two EPs—1999's Soul Control and 2000's You're Not Crazy—he issued his debut full-length, the quirky electro-funk album In Mesopotamia in 2001. That release was succeeded by 2004's Are + Be, the first Mocky record to include contributions from regular associates Jamie Lidell and Feist. In 2005 he appeared on Lidell's widely praised breakthrough Multiply. He next put out his third album, Navy Brown Blues, in 2006.

Mocky remained active as a writer and producer for Feist, Jane Birkin, and Nikka Costa, among numerous others. He resurfaced in 2009 with Saskamodie on Crammed Discs, his most accomplished work to date, moving from funk and rap toward lounge, orchestral soul, jazz, and further territories. The album marked a modest breakthrough, drawing widespread critical acclaim including praise from Pitchfork and the BBC. Over the ensuing years he continued producing and co-writing for assorted artists, and in 2011 he composed the soundtrack for the Chinese film UFO in Her Eyes.

The experimental solo EP The Graveyard Novelas appeared in 2013, and after relocating to Los Angeles he released the ambitious orchestral pop album Key Change two years later. Following several additional EPs released under the Moxtapes banner, along with collaborations involving Kelela, Mr. Oizo, and Selah Sue, Mocky gathered unreleased material on the 2018 LP Music Save Me (One More Time) and issued the live-in-studio set A Day at United. He also created the music for the anime series Carole & Tuesday, which debuted in 2019. Overtones for the Omniverse arrived in 2021 as a captivating orchestral suite incorporating Tropicalia excursions, recorded at the same Los Angeles studio that hosted Stevie Wonder's classic Songs in the Key of Life. He subsequently began releasing a sequence of uptempo instrumental singles that were gathered on 2022's Goosebumps Per Minute, Vol. 1.