Cutting vocals in the woods behind his college dorm. Mixing in the backseat of a sedan. Sneaking into the music department after hours to teach himself to play new instruments (and sneaking out before the faculty arrived in the morning). From the start, Mobley's work has been marked by solitude, ingenuity, and a drive that could only be called obsessive. With his new album, Fresh Lies, Vol. 1, he single handedly writes, performs, and produces his music, designs his artwork, directs his videos, produces his multimedia live shows, and even builds new instruments to carry out his vision...

One man band operations normally fall into two categories: those that can pull it off because they have a raw talent; and those who are just self-deluded half-talented control freaks. Thankfully Mobley is the former. It's pretty obvious that he's a perfectionist and won't release any old rubbish to an unsuspecting public.

For Fresh Lies, Vol. 1, Mobley casts his net wide, covering quite a lot of ground. The 10 songs (35 min, 15 sec) dip in and out of genres (it even takes inspiration from Industrial music with the track 'Young Adult Fiction') and time periods. The end result is an album that's timeless: it could have been released in the '90s, yesterday or 20 years from now.

8

Nick Smithson