Mocky

Mocky was born Dominic Salole in Saskatchewan, Canada. He later moved to Ottawa and Toronto, and then to London, Amsterdam and Berlin. He currently lives in Los Angeles. His father is of Somali descent, but was born in present-day Yemen. His mother is English.

Mocky grooving with fans at a performance on May 20, 2006 at the Stadtgarten concert hall in Cologne, Germany.

Mocky has released five albums under his own name: In Mesopotamia, Are + Be, Navy Brown Blues, Saskamodie, and Key Change. He released them first on his own label Mockyrecordings and the Japanese label Saidera, then on the German labels Gomma and Four Music, as well as on V2 Records in France, and Saskamodie on Crammed Discs. As a producer and songwriter he has worked with artists as diverse as Jamie Lidell, Feist, Kelela, Matt Corby, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Vulfpeck, Joey Dosik, Moses Sumney, Selah Sue, Nikka Costa, GZA, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Chilly Gonzales, Peaches and more.

His music is notable for its sense of humour, and for combining elements of hip-hop and experimental sounds into memorable tunes. Mocky's song "Sweet Music" from his first album quickly became an underground hit, especially in Europe.

He was also a member of the groups Puppetmastaz, The Shit, Son, The D.O.M, the Freeway Band, and The Roustabouts.

In December 2008, Mocky announced the 2009 release of his new and mostly instrumental album Saskamodie on the Crammed Discs label. The album was released to wide critical acclaim, Pitchfork Media calling it an "exceptional musical album".[2]

In 2012, Mocky publicly announced his move from his longtime home, Berlin, to Los Angeles.[3] In late 2012 he premiered his new song "Little Bird" via The Fader[4] and a video for the new song "Make You Rich" via Vogue.[5]

In February 2013, he released the 7 song EP "Graveyard Novelas (The Moxtape Vol. 1)" and premiered it on Paper[6]

In February 2015, Mocky released the EP "Living Time (The Moxtape Vol. 2)" and in June Mocky released the album "Key Change" on his own Heavy Sheet label. Mocky released two more editions of his "Moxtapes" in 2016 and 2017 with "The Moxtape Vol. 3" and "How To Hit What And How Hard" and 2018 saw him release a compilation album with the best songs from those Moxtapes and some exclusives as an album entitled "Music Save Me (One More Time). Also in 2018 Mocky started a new series of albums which are recorded in a single day with some of the most exciting and idiosyncratic local musicians in a vintage recording studio and with "A Day At United" released a collection of 9 instrumentals, recorded at United Recording Studios (former home of Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole and others) in Los Angeles and featuring and incedible cast of LA's finest left of center jazz and funk musicians.

Mocky is considered to be a member of the Canadian Crew, a loose collective of immigrant Canadian musicians mostly living in Europe that includes Peaches, Chilly Gonzales, Feist, Taylor Savvy, and others.

Mocky is also a much sought after live performer, and plays in shows for fellow musicians Gonzales and Jamie Lidell, usually on drums, keyboards, bass or guitar.

In September 2009, Mocky had an appearance by the rapper GZA on his soundtrack-like tune "Birds of a Feather".

In 2010 and 2011 Mocky co-produced the albums Buen Soldado by Francisca Valenzuela, Modern Day Addiction by Clare Bowditch[7] and Metals by Feist.[8]

Mocky has co-written and co-produced songs for:

• Jamie Lidell's 2005 album Multiply and 2008 album JIM.
• Feist's albums The Reminder (nominated for four grammys) and Metals.[8]

In addition, Mocky co-wrote and co-produced the 2008 album Jim by Jamie Lidell. He also frequently collaborates with musicians Chilly Gonzales and Kevin Blechdom.

Some of Mocky's other co-writing credits include:

• "Bittersweet Melodies", "Graveyard", "Caught A Long Wind" from the album Metals by Feist
• "Multiply", "When I Come Back Around", "What's the Use", "What is it this Time" and "Game for Fools" from the album Multiply by Jamie Lidell
• "Take me to Broadway" with Gonzales
• "So Sorry" from the album The Reminder by Feist
• "Another Day", "Wait for me", Out of my System", "All I Wanna Do", "Little Bit of Feelgood", "Figured me Out", "Green Light", "Rope of Sand" from the album Jim by Jamie Lidell
• "Without Love" from the Album Pebble to a Pearl by Nikka Costa
• Resolution and "Lay You Down" from the "Resolution EP" by Matt Corby
• "Trick of the Light" from the "Live on the Resolution Tour EP" by Matt Corby
• "Not Knowing" from the "Grow" Single by Rae Morris
• "Floorshow" and "Do It Again" from the "Cut 4 Me" Mixtape by Kelela
• "Never Gone" from the album Elsewhere by Denai Moore
• "Worth The Wait" by Nils Wülker feat. Jill Scott
• "Overthinking" by Romans feat. Mary J. Blige
• "Young Up", "Pleasure", "Any Party", "Baby Be Simple" from the "Pleasure" album by Feist (singer)
• "Take Me Apart", "Waitin", "Enough", "Better", "Altadena" from the "Take Me Apart" album by Kelela
• "Inside Voice", "Take Mine", "Don't Want It To Be Over", "Past The Point", "Emergency Landing" by Joey Dosik

In 2011, Mocky composed the soundtrack to Xiaolu Guo's new full-length feature movie UFO in Her Eyes that was filmed in China.[9] In 2019, he composed the background music for Carole & Tuesday, an anime television series directed by Shinichirō Watanabe.[10]

• Official website
• MySpace
• Mocky page on the Crammed Discs site
• Interview in Portuguese Webzine
• Mocky discography at Discogs with links to Dominic Salole, Musical Truth, Re-run.