Alice
by Moby

Album: Last Night (2008)
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Songfacts®:

  • Moby (from his record label web site): "The song 'Alice' started with a mistake. There's this effect that I have, a very old proto-distortion pedal, and I was playing a bassline through it and there was something broken on the distortion pedal and it made this weird but fantastic feedback. So this song starts with this weird bass feedback, which is just a really happy mistake because it wasn't originally supposed to sound like that. After writing the track I then sent it out to Aynzli and the 419 Crew, who contributed their amazing vocals. Aynzli's style is so fast and so dense and fluid, I think that he's going to have a remarkable career. And what makes the 419 Crew so special is that they go back and forth between Yoruban and English (as they're from Nigeria)."
  • Moby (from Uncut magazine February 2008): "There's a song called 'Alice,' which has a lot of different vocalists. There's Aynzli, a Jamaican MC who now lives in the UK, a Nigerian hip hop group called The 410 Crew and my friend Amelia a burlesque performer."
  • This, like the rest of the album, was recorded in Moby's home studio in New York. It was produced by Dan Grech-Maguerat, who has worked with Radiohead and Scissor Sisters.
  • Moby told The Sun newspaper May 8, 2008 about the contribution of UK rapper Aynzli Jones on this track. "I've never met Aynzli but I first heard him on MySpace. His approach to rapping was so talented and unique he reminds me of Rakim. Aynzli is a cross between him and Eminem. I sent him the track and he sent me back vocals. The track is okay, but Aynzli makes it."
  • The music video, directed by Andreas Nilsson (Bright Eyes, Depeche Mode), features shots of Aynzli Jones' disembodied head performing the song, along with vintage B-movie footage of fiery explosions and science experiments. The scene of a shirtless James Earl Jones punching a watermelon is from the 1982 British horror film Blood Tide.

    Moby shared his opinion of the clip on his website: "My only input to the video was that I wanted to see a lot of things exploding. As a result it’s filled with lots of things exploding... I particularly love the fact that the video makes absolutely no sense (although it's filled with monsters and exploding trucks)."

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