Mobley
We Do Not Fear Ruins
Last Gang Records
OUT APRIL 23
CONTACT:
ROSIE BOYD // PUBLICIST
LYDIA KRUMPER // PUBLICIST
When you don’t fear ruins, “apocalypse” is just another word for opportunity.
This is a central theme of Mobley’s forthcoming full-length debut, We Do Not Fear Ruins, out spring 2025 via Last Gang Records. The intro track, “The End,” opens with discordant transmissions and muffled Spanish, before a solitary flute wanders into a lush psychedelic chorus. And with that we enter the stirring new world of Ruins, an exploration of the intimate, the infinite, and time itself.
With his last musical project, Cry Havoc!, Mobley introduced audiences to the character of Jacob Creedmoor, an ordinary man who became radicalized into a Robin Hood-esque hero in an alternate version of the early ‘80s United States. Against a backdrop of futuristic art rock, Jacob fought fascism, pulled off daring heists, and was eventually captured by the government and imprisoned in suspended animation.
We Do Not Fear Ruins is the next chapter in the Austin musician/producer/filmmaker/writer's ongoing sci-fi epic. Ruins leaps nearly 300 years into the future, when Jacob awakens in a post-apocalyptic, post-U.S. world. Having lost everyone he's known, he navigates grief, memory, and heartbreak through a range of sonic textures as expansive as the wastelands (or possibly afterlife) he finds himself wandering.
When deciding on the most effective sonic palette for his current project, Mobley turned to 1981, the year when Jacob was frozen.
"When I listened to some of the songs in the air during that period, I was stunned by the incredible diversity of popular music,” he says. “You had Bruce Springsteen and Michael Jackson, but new wave and funk were still happening. Pop and country were doing a bunch of interesting things. R&B was huge, and there were the first rumblings of hip-hop, as well as vestigial traces of disco."
New single “No Exit” finds Mobley time-traveling to blend retro, modern, and futuristic sounds. The song starts with a Morricone-inspired whistled motif, but beneath the groove and cinematic swagger, it’s a meditation on solipsism, solitude, and the “undiscovered country” of the afterlife. The tension between the song’s laidback verses and earnest, pleading choruses mirrors the tensions in Jacob, a perpetual loner who nevertheless proclaims his love for humanity, crying out in the refrain, “What am I without people?” The video handles the song’s weighty themes with a healthy dose of cheek and dry humor.
Despite the sweeping audiovisual scope of Jacob’s saga, the lyrics of We Do Not Fear Ruins remain decidedly internal: an examination of loneliness, yearning, and cautious hope—feelings that are universal, no matter what time period we’re stuck in.
Ruins marks Mobley’s first release since 2022’s Cry Havoc!. The intervening years have seen the restless artist touring coast-to-coast, writing a forthcoming novel that expounds on the album’s concept, and composing musical scores for film and stage. Standout recent work includes producing and directing the music for an Adidas commercial during the Paris Olympics, and composing the theme for Webby Award-winning SiriusXM & Smithsonian podcast All Music Is Black Music, hosted by Selema Masekela and featuring guests Kelly Rowland, Ne-Yo, St. Vincent, and many more.
His songs have racked up millions of streams on DSPs and landed sync placements on HBO, FOX, NBC, ESPN, and CW; seen airplay adds on Alt Nation, KROQ, KUTX, ACL Radio, and KEXP; and received praise from Billboard, Noisey, Rolling Stone, The New York Times, Consequence of Sound, and American Songwriter.
While the studio is his first love, Mobley is most at home on the road. The consummate frontman has played dozens of festivals worldwide (including ACL, Lollapalooza, Hangout, SXSW, Noise Pop, Reeperbahn, and Float Fest); and opened for Cold War Kids, Phantogram, James Blake, Bishop Briggs, WAVVES, Barns Courtney, Dermot Kennedy, Sylvan Esso, and Matt & Kim.
The present moment finds Mobley focused on the future: “Living with and working through these songs and stories has been the most fulfilling challenge of my artistic life. I can’t wait to share it all and see the life it takes on when it’s no longer just mine.”