A couple weeks ago, we were lucky enough to test out the new lanes at Brooklyn Bowl, the first all green bowling alley. And let me tell you…it is sweet. We got to chill with Moby for the day and talk about his older albums as well as his new album, Wait For Me, to be releasted on June 30th. We also got the inside scoop on his new video for “Shot In The Back Of The Head” by David Lynch which you can view in it’s entirety here.

In the world of downloadable music, the 40-minute album is obsolete. It took six years and the latest Illinois release to make me realize this, but here I am. In fact, with the deterioration of radio along with the eradication of physical properties entirely, pop music’s ties to tradition are the demons of the art itself to slay. Simply said, if you make a 3+ minute pop tune nowadays, you only did it because everyone else did so before you. By this logic, the sans-time music world should allow unstoppable song-making machines like Prince to release an album (or whatever could be quantified as an “album” now) every week. It also makes me question the motives of artists today: Why do they wait until they have 40 minutes of material to release a “full” record any more? Can they only fill 40 minutes? Or were those just the best 40 minutes of 80? Are they happy for the resurgence of vinyl, so they can have a physical limiter of their material? The whole system is in flux and it’s freaking me out.

All of these thoughts swam through my mind while enjoying The Adventures of Kid Catastrophe, a mix of Moby-style hip-hop and power pop that offers many a delicate tune. The true realization moment arrived when I came to “Are You Coming With Me?” and my world stopped. Preceded by the kinds of wonderful songs normally reserved for Wes Anderson movies (that would be emo-pop based on 60s mod rock that you could score a wrist-slitting scene to), things came to a head on this song. Sonic grandeur arose in my ears as the song soared to the heavens, carrying everyone along with it. It’s a heartbreaker, but with realistic optimism one has to fool himself into believing he can turn a bad relationship around. It feels climactic. There’s something about pianos, harmoniums and acoustic guitars surrounded by full-volume choruses that feel like the end of prom night, and I was ready to stand and applaud.

And then the album kept going.

And going. And going. That might sound like a bad situation if the following songs weren’t so good, but the real point is that my experience opened my eyes to the sans-time capabilities of today’s music world, and it’s a capability Illinois must be aware of as well. Kid Catastrophe won’t receive a CD release until June 9, yet the album’s been available on iTunes since early May as a “Deluxe Edition,” implying there is a “Standard Edition” forthcoming. That means cuts, and that would be a shame, because the true luxury of the sans-time album — for all my pseudo-complaining earlier — means flexibility and freedom. With no time constraints, Illinois can feel free to include instrumental tracks like the lovely “Church”. A hit-seeking, time-sensitive producer would spy those one hundred seconds and see a trim target. Limited by time and the physical realm of CDs, we might also lose gems like “Old Saloon” or “Broken String” (a.k.a. “The Big Finale, Part 2″). An expansive and inviting album would near dangerously close to becoming either repetitive or unambitious.

Moby’s been feeling inspired lately, and we’re about to benefit from it — his ninth studio album, Wait For Me, hits stores June 30, and we have the video for his first single “Shot In The Back Of The Head” right here, right now.

The countdown to the release of the album will kick off tomorrow with a free download of the video. It’s a dark, pulsing and haunting few minutes, directed by David Lynch, who was actually the inspiration for the album in a round-about way.

We’ll let Moby explain, in a blog entry from his web site:
david was talking about creativity, and to paraphrase, about how creativity in and of itself, and without market pressures, is fine. it seems that too often creative output is judged by how well it accommodates the marketplace, how much market share it commands and how much money it generates.

In making this record i wanted to focus on making something that i loved, without really being concerned about how it might be received by the marketplace. as a result it’s a quieter, more melodic, more mournful and more personal record than some of the records i’ve made in the past.

Moby called in his friends to help record the album, doodled the album art with sharpie on some copy paper and did the whole thing from the comfort of his own home. The mixing — done using purely analog equipment in true stereo — was done with the help of Ken Thomas (Sigur Ros, M83).

Check out “Shot In The Back Of The Head” here, and be sure to download your free video tomorrow.

One million children need to learn how to meditate and half of the original Beatles are going to help them out. Yeah, that’s right, Sir Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are scheduled the headline the David Lynch Foundation’s benefit concert, “Change Begins Within,” at Radio City Music Hall in April, which is a benefit concert  to raise funds for one-million “at-risk” children so they can learn how to meditate.

McCartney and Starr, Donovan, Sheryl Crow, Moby and a host of others will be performing on April 4 to help Lynch with his cause. David Lynch launched his foundation in 2005 in hopes of financing scholarships for students in middle and high schools that wanted to learn about Transcendental Meditation, which Lynch credits as a life-long tool that can help kids overcome stress and violence, as well as gain success later in life. We figure, if it worked for him, TM can’t be too bad.

McCartney, like Lynch, is an advocate of Transcendental Meditation as well, having studied it in India with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1968. He has accredited the practice for helping him with his music and success over the past 40 years. “In moments of madness, it has helped me find moments of serenity,” said McCartney. “I would like to think that it would help provide them [children] a quiet haven in a not-so-quiet world.”