We Do Not Fear Ruins
Focus Track + Video
“Now Forever”
Live Dates This Summer
More information here
Today, Austin-based songwriter, filmmaker, and one-man tour de force Mobley releases his highly-anticipated new album We Do Not Fear Ruins via Last Gang Records. The sci-fi concept album centers on Jacob Creedmoor, an artist and a dissident in early-80s New York who is arrested and imprisoned in suspended animation for 300 years. We Do Not Fear Ruins follows Jacob as he emerges into a future unlike anything he’s known before. The album’s expansive, wide-ranging sound mirrors his journey through time, while meticulously crafted lyrics meditate on yearning and possibility amid the wreckage of Jacob’s life.
Though many of the album’s songs explore heartbreak and uncertainty about what’s to come, focus track “Now Forever“—released today along with a psychedelia-infused music video—defiantly kicks down the future’s door. The track’s progressive structure, swagger and anthemic refrain (“Now Forever!”) propel us optimistically—if uncertainly—toward a tomorrow that will never come unless we fully face the present.
“This song is about time,” Mobley expands. “Specifically about the paradox of the present. We can only experience time as flowing from past to future, and because of the limits of our cognition, we can only ever experience small sections of that flow (what we call ‘now’). The song explores the illusory nature of the present and swings between despair and exultation at the thought that ‘now is forever.’”
Mobley will also be playing live dates this spring and summer, more information available here.
Listen / Share: We Do Not Fear Ruins
When you don’t fear ruins, “apocalypse” is just another word for opportunity. This is a central theme of Mobley’s new full-length debut, We Do Not Fear Ruins, an exploration of the intimate, the infinite, and time itself. The genre-promiscuous, sonically expansive concept album continues the story of the character 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 Mobley’s ongoing sci-fi epic. The story 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.”
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.
The time spent between Cry Havoc! and now saw Mobley touring coast to coast, writing a forthcoming novel that expounds on We Do Not Fear Ruins’ concept, and composing musical scores for film and stage. Mobley has produced and directed the music for an Adidas commercial during the Paris Olympics and composed the theme for Webby Award-winning SiriusXM & Smithsonian podcast All Music Is Black Music, hosted by Selema Masekela and featuring guests like Kelly Rowland, Ne-Yo, and St. Vincent.
Mobley’s songs have racked up millions of streams across Spotify and Apple Music and has landed sync placements on HBO, FOX, NBC, ESPN, and CW, seen airplay adds on Alt Nation, KROQ, KUTX, ACL Radio, and KEXP, and has received praise from outlets like Billboard, Noisey, Rolling Stone, the New York Times, Consequence, American Songwriter, and beyond. He’s played festivals like ACL, Lollapalooza, and SXSW and has opened for acts like Cold War Kids, Phantogram, James Blake, WAVVES, Sylvan Esso, Matt & Kim, and more.
The present moment finds Mobley focused on the future. He says, “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.”
Live Dates:
May 4 Philadelphia, PA @ Sing Us Home Festival
June 13 St Louis, MO @ Java
June 19 Dallas, TX @ Three Links
June 20 Houston, TX @ Wonky Power Live
June 21 Austin, TX @ The Parish
July 24 Ft Worth, TX @ Tulips
July 25 Corpus Christi, TX @ House of Rock
July 26 New Orleans, LA @ Gasa Gasa
‘
Follow Mobley:
Instagram | Facebook | X | Spotify | YouTube
