Photo by Julia Reihs/KUTX
Multi-instrumentalist, visual artist, and one-man show Mobley, has been has been part of the Austin Music Experience for over a decade. His debut full-length Fresh Lies. Vol. 1 quickly made him our April Artist of the Month in 2018.
Now on a new label (Last Gang Records) Mobley has an EP ready to go with a couple of tracks mixed by Jim Eno of Spoon. Then the pandemic hit. The EP release, originally set for this spring, is postponed for now, but he shares a sneak of what’s to come with latest single “Nobody’s Favourite.”
While he waits for live music to resume, Mobley knew he wanted to use this time at home to create for a cause. Enter – A Home Unfamiliar.
“I came up with the project because, like so many, I felt bewildered and helpless in the face of the global pandemic. But I looked out and saw countless people working hard and braving incredible peril to get our community through this. The work I know best is music and filmmaking and I knew there must be a way to direct that work toward their crucial efforts. Austin is brimming with talented musicians and filmmakers. Pooling our talents for a project like this seemed like a great way to raise some money for COVID-19 relief, but the radically collaborative nature of the project is also a compelling demonstration of the beauty and potential of collectivism. Virtually everyone involved has expressed how meaningful it’s been to contribute to something greater than themselves at a time like this.”
He enlisted the help of over 30 national and Texas musicians and filmmakers including Jim Eno, Shakey Graves, Sabrina Ellis, Bright Light Social Hour, Kelsey Wilson and Walker Lukens to create the visual album in hopes of raising money for the Central Texas Foodbank.
“It was created over the month of April, with each artist crafting their portion in under two days. There was no direct communication between the artists in the creation of their work & none of them heard or saw anything more than a small snippet of the piece preceding theirs.
Their work is unified by the prompt they were all given — a phrase meant to evoke this period & the strange salience taken on by the places we know the best: A Home Unfamiliar.”
Watch the full interview, including a performance of “Nobody’s Favourite, ” with Mobley and KUTX host Laurie Gallardo below.
