The Man from Mo'Wax

A fascinating watch even if you are not necessarily into this music scene. You are taken on fast paced and emotionally journey through James Lavelle's career. This is not your typical music documentary. It shows some quite raw and difficult to watch moments when Lavelle is at his lowest. The humour sprinkled throughout, especially from interviews with Josh Homme really make this film sparkle.

This is a film you have to see, it's honest, exhilarating and packed full of brilliant tracks. Even without being a die-hard Mo'Wax/UNKLE fan I could watch this film countless times, this is a profound story of dizzying success, crushing failure and everything in-between. Amazing home video from James Lavelle and DJ Shadow as well as some really insightful (and at times very funny) interviews with key people from from the worlds of music and art, Josh Homme, Futura, Ian Brown for example, make this film a must see.

The man with Mo wax gives viewers an extremely informative and exciting view into 1990's musician James Lavelle's journey within the music industry. Director Mathew Jones gives a wonderful insight into the workings of Britains underground music scenes with this brilliant, fast paced documentary.

This production truly stands out from other music documentaries with its incredibly insightful style. Not only do we get a full view into the rise and fall of the musicians career, we are also introduced to other music icons who influenced his journey greatly. The viewer also has the opportunity to learn a lot about the workings of the music industry in 1990 Britain from this production.

'The Man from Mo'Wax' showcases original clips captured by Lavelle and his teams, from the beginning of their exciting journey, through to the hardships that they faced along the way. The use of constant self tape cut aways creates an extremely authentic and honest representation of how hard Lavelle worked to create a name for himself within the industry.

I truly loved every part of this documentary. From observing the hard work that went into the creation of a "boutique label", through to gaining an understanding of just how much Lavelle kept believing in himself in order to gain positive recognition. The appearance of iconic musicians, cult fashion brands and art throughout the entire production made for extremely nostalgic viewing.

I am the same age as Lavelle, and contend that the 90's hip hop and electro music has never been surpassed - apart from DJ Shadow, Blackalicious, Portishead, Massive Attack and the Beastie Boys (all referenced in this doco.), think Lamb, The Chemical Brothers and Leftfield just for a start; then the more underground artists like Coldcut, DJ Spooky, Kid Loco, Herbert, Coil...

Even if you were not into the scene, this was an entertaining biography following the dramatic peaks and troughs in the life of a gifted visionary and flawed human; even a kind of everyman story - perhaps resonant for every privileged gen-X male. It is questionable whether Lavelle is really an artist, or just a kind of curator - a particularly creative, ambitious marketing and A&R man, who was in the right place and time to make a career from his passion.

So many of the people interviewed in this film are fascinating in their own right, artists and producers pivotal to this early 90's London music scene and the amazing art that it produced - not only in the electronic genre, and not only music.

There have been some great music docos recently, and I look forward to more - especially this year's "Sisters with Transistors" which I haven't tracked down yet. So despite my obvious bias I believe this an objectively engaging piece of storytelling and recommend it unreservedly.

Without a doubt, The Man From Mo'Wax is one of the best music documentaries I have ever watched. From start to finish, the movie is so well edited with so much great footage and gives a honest view on the ups and downs on the career of James Lavelle.