Mouse on Mars

I've never thought much at all about the idea I encountered that day,
defamiliarization, though it certainly comes up in certain ways in all
kinds of things that I do. But, as for Mouse on Mars: today they
sounded to me like the paragon example of
postmodernism-as-defamiliarization, defamiliarizing enormous chunks of
all dance music. Paragon, not just because they're so thorough about
it, but because it all sounds so natural and easy. That seems to me to
be a strange thing to accomplish simultaneously.

And sound seems so plastic on the record.

Personally, I like Iaora Tahiti and Instrumentals the best, but the last one was good as well -- developed many of the ideas from Niun Niggung (orchestration + IDM, semi pop structures), and was more enjoyable to boot. However, my wish is that they would spend more time producing and remixing more mainstream artists.

for a while in the late 90s, MoM seemed really exciting, the glitch aesthetic used to do pretty much what josh describes above, deterritorialize large chunks of dance and pop music into fragments. actually, not so much "fragments" as intense, close-ups into the heart of the beats, melodies, tones. little technicolor flareups that instead of just being window dressing formed the heart of the songs themselves. also, their trampling of dance music was fun in a way that so little IDM was (maybe aphex twin at his best..."girl/boy song".) lately though, they've just seemed tired. i'm not sure if it's lack of inspiration on their part, being burnt out on idm on my part, or the fact that more and more glitch merchants are also letting a little color and spark into their work. i hope they mend; dom's suggestion of remixes sounds like a good idea.

http://www.now.com/mp3tv/feature.now?javascript=dhtml&fid=2263736&cid=1688988

the first mouse on mars cd i ever bought was "cache coeur naif," which was a really nice introduction to their sound. "instrumentals" (comp tracks, i think, so a little scattered) and "glam" came next, both exceedingly nice, and i just kept buying them after that. "iaora tahiti" is nice but sounds like they're still working on ideas they would later master.

i really like lithops, too - the "blasmusik" 7" and "uni umit" are both delicious.

I do love Mouse on Mars...always been a little lonely in my admiration of them, actually, which is probably why I never started a thread on them here. I never get the impression that anybody cares about their music as much as I do.

They seem like a pretty unique proposition in the electronic music scene to me, merging technical sophistication (sweet arrangements, sound design, etc.) with playfulness, a good pop sense, and a "try anything" attitude (the prog vocal stuff on Idiology vs. the glitchy laptop drift of Instrumentals). Their biggest pluses are the musical humor and willingness to go pop, which stretch back to the beginning. Idiology was one of the few albums I've heard in the last few years that made me think, "Wow, music just might go in a whole new direction."

I had a neat experience when I was interviewing Jan for Pitchfork where a musician's perception of what he was doing lined up very closely with my own take on his stuff. I think of Mouse on Mars music, more than most bands/artists I can name, as being its own little world of sound, with internally consistent rules, vocabulary, etc. The constraints MoM put on their music, and their way of building their tracks, happen to overlap with how I want music to be.

Listen to the Cache Coeur Naif EP, recorded in 1996, and it's amazing how much something like "Schnick-Schmack" sounds like REALLY GOOD microhouse pop in the Herbert vein. And then they throw in a track like "Glim" at the end, with that build & those amazing starburst explosions going all through it. Just on those 4 tracks there, they demonstrate a lot of range.

I think they fail pretty badly sometimes. A couple of those noise tracks on Idiology are just obnoxious. But I like that they experiment with different moods, textures, etc., trying to see what things will fit with their aesthetic.

I think they probably improved some with time, but my favorite era is '96 to '99 or so, when they were mixing it up between dance pop (Autioditacker, Cache) with the ambient stuff (Glam & Instrumentals.)

I think it's about 25% music, 75% album art on this. There's more "colorful" programming on the more electronic Niun, that's part of it.

Re the sleeves -- the cover art of Idiology hurt the recognition of the album some, probably. I think a really colorful sleeve w/ more pop design would have complimented the album more. Or at least given it a shift in perspective that would have been interesting. The way Endless Summer did w/ its cover art and title. That can real steer the reception of a record, esp. w/ more abstract music (this observation on loan from Gareth.)

yes, melody is such a horrid little thing, isn't it? can't imagine why anyone would even consider such a thing. death to melody! long live pretentious glitchy tripe!

Well, how about more time than just with Stereolab? I thought the stuff they did with them on D&L was best sounding stuff on the record, plus Cache is cool. I get the feeling they could make a lot of people sound good by just showing up.

Something in those furry statically-charged surfaces... maybe the reverie some folks seem to find in Boards of Canada is what I have with MoM. I have Glam on vinyl and I think it might be my favourite LP in the world.

No. When I went to AMG to see it, I was greeted with a familiar reviewer though. From what I gather, it's more them than Flur.

onate, usually when I like to listen to autechre (haven't been listening in a while) the sense of tracks unfolding machinically seems to be what does it for me.

but can yr computer speakers do justice to the sound if you download them. I'm not a fan or anything (nevah got anything by them) but i'm just wondering abt that.

Don't sleep on Lithops, either. Jan's (I think) solo proj--less beat-oriented, it's all about making machines sing. Very nice.

i haven't heard much m.o.m, i tried to get into idiology at the cd store listening post but it wasn't happenin'

< /trife >

hahahahahahaha. Personally, I haven't heard any electronic music that's come as close to being as rhythmically advanced/interesting/bad-ass as Autechre (see: the second track on Peel Sessions 2, much of Confield & Chiastic Slide, Gantz Graf).

I also think they have some very nice melodies, though often not at the same time as the hardcore rhythmic stuff.

To be honest it's also what's driven me away, I'm with the above poster on buying practically everything over the last decade or so, but in my case I'm ready for a change. All I ask is one handraiser, one well-arranged piece of mayhem that can hold my attention for more than half a minute or so, and since we're talking about an album, no more of the filler that made idiology such a disappointment by the third or fourth listen.

Who are the vocalists?

I loved the first two tracks on 'Idiology'... it came out so quickly after 'Niun', and so many of the tracks were so crazy / sloppy that I just took that album as a fun transitional blowing-off-of-steam from (which they obviously slaved over) and I didn't hold it against them.

This new one though, it's a statement...

blowing-off-of-stream from the previous record (which they obviously slaved over)

Got the new one today. reactions from those who have it already? "Instrumentals" bores me a bit tbh, but "Rost Pocks" & "Idiology" are fab. One of those acts where I'm actually wary of hearing more of their records in case they don't match up to the same standard.

Mmmm "Send Me Shivers" is doing it for me at the moment :)

Subtly processed female vocals = big weakness of mine, I don't really enjoy Sophie Rimheden though, but adore Ellen Allien. Should I really be buying disco records?

MoM are as bad as Autechre for zero-critical-agreement on what is their best work. I'll probably try 'Glam' next I think.

This one is such a dissapointment. I think I'm going to sell it.

Search

Rost Pocks
Idiology
Instrumentals
Vulvaland
Niun Niggung

find/download - 'Untitled States Of'

Destroy

Radical Connector

(Yet to hear 'Autoditacker'& not too bothered tbh, want to hear 'Glam' eventually. Probably sleeping on Iaora Tahiti unfairly).

Radical Connector is one of the best records of the last 10 years. Thank fuck it doesn't sound like you think it should.

I love MOM usually, I just happened to find it a predictable and sonically boring record.

I'm intrigued you have such a strong reaction though. Care to defend it some more? I'd be interested to read another perspective on it, I didn't find the reviews at the time hugely englightening.

I'm sorry I don't know your history :-/ I can understand your ire if that's what you thought I was saying.

I don't think it was a huge change of direction was it? It just didn't work for me very well YMMV obviously. 'Predictable' only in regards to their previous work. From anyone else, far from it.

I just heard that mp3 and the structures reminded me vaguely of Idiology + playfully odd hip-hop over the top. It sounded 'fun' and inventive (and funky) similar to how I'd expected RC might have been. I hadn't imagined any specific sound or linear 'progression' like that, they don't do much of that do they? :-)

and Sonny, I'm pretty certain there are plenty of worse directions they could have gone.
freak folk fer instance ? jeez, so melodramatic.

pity MoM, such asinine 'fans'.

I only meant the final product sounded un-comfortable (stilted, forced, 'meta', the most 'IDM' (in a bad way) record they've done).

I'm sure they had a blast making it but it didn't come across in the finished product for me. Which is most untypical.

Maybe I am projecting, who really knows? I didn't however come here to continue slagging it off in some "me right/you wrong" fashion.

That said, I'm obviously not stimulating much in the way of meaningful conversation about it either so I guess I'll leave it!

Thanks for the reply upthread btw. What is your 'history' here in a nutshell, or a link? curious.

But all this seemed to mean was smoothing away the most jarring, spastic edges in their music, incorporate more 'pop' conventional funk rhythms & plain verse-chorus-verse structures. Even the best tracks like the one with Niobe on just didn't go anywhere, compared to their usual ever-shifting tunes.

As for previous work there are vocals on - Actionist Respoke, Doit, Die Seele Von Brian Wilson, Cache Coeur Naif, Schnick-schnack for starters.

Or to put it another way, compare/contrast with Delay's Luomo project, which went for the sensuous feel of house first and only later added the strong 4/4 whomp. Mouse on Mars go straight for the whomp but don't seem too concerned with or even aware of how the music should feel. I'm not sure if this makes the album bad or just odd; it's one of those albums which I feel quite conflicted about while listening to it.

Fandango and Tim pretty much nail what falters with the new record. Their ability to shift genres was one of the things that drew me to them, but what kept me coming back was the way they always maintained that [x] element that makes them sound like them. Radical Connector sounds like MoM doing pastiche, for the first time in their career, rather than really inhabiting a genre.

Brad: Yes, it is honestly my opinion that this was the worst direction they could have gone in. I like it O.K., but it just seemed like a very boring thing to do in 2004 -- as if their pandering to the pitchfork set who just discovered that it's okay to like pop music. I was disappointed because I think those people are dense and I think one of my favorite groups can do better than them. Something folkier would have been great, despite any trends, because the folk elements in Niun Niggung and Idiology were interesting and distinctly their own -- which realy illustrates how they used to lead trends but fell behind with the last album.

But I guess you have your own opinion about what works for them, even if you're a dick about it.

i also am one who feels this is their worst record, and feel "conflicted" listening to it for some unapparent reason. I can say that live, they had their vocalist/drummer centre stage pounding away, smiling, and i was just hankering for more knob twiddling and scattered beats/waves/whatever from the other dude. after idiology i bought radical connector without a thought, and i've not listened to it since. the new single (i heard after buying) i find extremely annoying. but it's only an opinion (personal reasons are unavoidable!) brad, and i dig that any of their albums can and are favourites to different people.

saying that, i'll take Instrumentals over anything else they've done.

-- Brad Laner (b...), April 30th, 2005.

Tne minute I first heard a MoM track I thought myself a fan cos I just loved the music. After that I several albums and they were all awesome, especially Idiology. When I heard RC it was the kind of gentle letdown that comes from a good release following back-to-back mindblowing albums. It was like playing Mortal Kombat III for the first time, thinking "Yes, this is cool, but sweet Jesus on a bicycle MK II was so much better than MK I - and so much better than the new stuff.

I like RC but I don't listen to it much anymore. If it wasn't MoM i probably wouldn't give it much of a chance anyways.

I thought it was fun, especially so to hear AGF in hip-hop producer mode even if it does (perhaps, inevitably) end up coming out a little tigerbeat6-ish.

with Connector they backgrounded the densely detailed squirky pure electronics that occupied the soloist position on previous records, and put all the detail work into the manipulation & editing of the vocals.

vocals are demanding, they have to be much louder than anything else in the mix to sound right, and when the focus is on them it kind of keeps the music from disruptively shifting around as much as earlier MoM -- Connector is much more straightforward. For me, the vocals are simply not to my taste & I miss the left turns; that's my problem. The jam at the end of "Spaceship" really grew on me & I'm still buying their next record on sight.

These guys were fantastic tonight at O2 London. So fun..

Ugh seriously is this band ever going to tour the US again? The last time they played, Ratatat and Junior Boys were opening for them

and when are they going to release new material? any idea what they're up to??

man, autoditacker really needed some time to marinate with me. listened to it tonight and i have to say it's probably as good as the first two.

THERE IS A NEW ALBUM

and it's out there..

well its a mini-lp

http://www.residentadvisor.net/images/news/2012/mouse-on-mars-wow.jpg

I wish I'd been here in 2002 when the real discussions were taking place about this group. They've been my favorite for many years now, I consider them to be far and away the most important and best act going. There are very few people who understand this!!!

Parastrophics is my favorite album from this year, even if it isn't as good as the old days (Autoditacker, Idiology).

I'm going to read through this whole thread and regret not being here to say, "YES, I AGREE!"

Looking forward to the "mini-LP."

Yo wait... guys... the mini-LP isn't the "new album." That's Parastrophics. It's a full length and it's astoundingly brilliant. Their best album since Idiology, or Radical Connector for people who came to them through that.

As for me, I love absolutely everything they've done from Yamo to Noisemachinetapes to Von Sudenfed to Microstoria+Lithops. Not sure if I'm missing anything there. Maybe GOFLEX.

I don't know if it's that my taste is just on a higher level than most, or if the band is just well tuned to my individual sound-interests. Personally I think time will show, and in 20 or 30 years it will be a lot easier to tell that these guys were doing something completely unique. Kind of like how Radiohead fans find out about CAN and realize the truth. About as contemporary as it can get, on some of their prior releases and at times on Parastrophics. Completely different strata.

Lol, dojo, I love Mouse on Mars and it's great to see someone so passionate about them, but I don't know if it's that my taste is just on a higher level than most is a statement likely to get you crucified on ilx.

hahaha guess I should give parastrophics another listen since it didn't do much for me and now I'm a little worried about my taste levels!

I'm a pretty huge fan of their stuff up to idiology but that one never fully clicked despite my trying really REALLY hard to like it. kinda gave up after that.

^ same here. my taste level confirms that the pinnacles of Autoditacker and Glam have yet to be matched.

Autoditacker is their best, Glam is slightly overrated if you really understand why MoM are the BOMB.

Being crucified is my specialty. Haha. I've seen repeatedly people who supposedly love electronic music but always go completely silent when MoM is mentioned. I have a habit of letting people hate me. It's for their own good, right?

Idiology is I think their most "important" album. It's the one where they push their aesthetic to its furthest limit. Not in terms of noise, but in terms of concept. They manage to create hyper-futuristic pop music while also having a certain... Schoenbergian purity... unity of structure and sound. It's utterly new. Perhaps just as new to the "song" form as Schoenberg was to the classical form back in the day. They deconstruct every level of the sound object world... from the concept-sound to the sound-sound to the production-sound to the melody-sound. LOL. They reduce pop music to an avant-garde art form with just as much validity as any given Beethoven or Mozart. The possibilities become endless.

Not only this but their melodic sense is always really enjoyable, their live show is perhaps the ONLY one which manages to blend live instruments and experimental electronics properly, and their philosophical interest adds a further dimension to the sound.

MoM's new internet only label, 'Recommended Records' -- have they no shame?

I always knew that green sock on the cover of their 'Diskdusk' single was a Henry Cow reference

http://www.mouseonmars.com/rr/

so far it's germanic beat scene shit that sounds amazing but is a little stiff, IDM-y, and scattered for me...so, very MoM.

So far "deef" (release rr-001) is alternating Stock, Hausen and Walkman-isms with icily well-produced 2003-style IDM which can't quite decide whether to be melodic or glitchy, but it's possible this post says more about my lack of more recent/relevant reference points than deef

anyway, definitely hoping to keep track of this new netlabel project thing, thanks!

Ha, cheeky bastards. Loving Parastrophics now I've actually got around to hearing it, btw.

Has anyone seen them live this tour? I caught them last night and it was stellar.

I really wish I could replace all the album versions w/ recordings of what they did live last night

Saw them last week... Was low keyed and frentic, and surprisingly fun to watch despite being pared down to its "classic" set-up (ie. no Dodo the drummer), and selecting only 2012 tracks.

ugh i missed them

me too :(

Ya I really wish they'd played more old stuff (or any at all tbh) but on the flipside it makes me wanna relisten to WOW

this is adorable

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGUVbkwWL_0

"give an artist 10 minutes in the studio and see what they come up with" sounds so much more appealing than the reality of "give an artist 10 minutes to just noodle and jam and fart out whatever they can for 10 long minutes"

It's all true!

http://www.iflscience.com/space/there-really-giant-mouse-mars-0

new album tomorrow guys

big fan of the first three but for me more mouse on meh at this point

what!!!

Ideology and audio tracker are their peaks

Fuck Varcharz was really good even tho the 20 glitch tracks at the end were a bit wtf

GLAM

Autoditacker just completely rules. Incredible sounds/melodies/configurations of textures.

^ absolutely

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCo2oyVttWA

Autoditacker just completely rules. Incredible sounds/melodies/configurations of textures.

mmm hmm. funny how their sound became harsher & more rigid as they became more like a live band. their material from this period really sounds alive to me. like, I picture dense ecosystems & various organisms going about their day when I listen to it.

t'Quietus review:
http://thequietus.com/articles/24375-mouse-on-mars-dimensional-people-lead-album-review

This is rad

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=izSPpFNuBcs

The new one is pretty amazing, on first listen. Somehow, it's like a footwork version of Laughing Stock - https://mouseonmarstj.bandcamp.com/album/dimensional-people

yeah it's great! their best in years.

the new one's super southern fried, which is nice - i mean they've toyed with slide guitars before on Ideology and Iora Tahiti but this one is way more organic and "live" feeling, albeit still pushed through their sonic blender

One of the best records of the year easily. Each track bleeds into the next like a proper record which feels rare these days. Like the track after foul mouth uses the vocal samples from the former as an arrangement. It’s a southern jAZZ techno record, solid gold

did they ever do another electropop record like radical connector? i haven't listened to any of the ones from the past decade but that was always one of my favs

but yeah glam > audioditacker > everything else

Rompatroullie just came up on shuffle. Man, what a brilliant track.

Just a fantastic record. Sound shapes constantly shifting dissolving and being reborn in completely unexpected but perfect configurations.

Respect to this band for that new record - it is like one long track - similar to what they did on Varcharz with all those glitch tracks at the end making the album reach something like 40 tracks. also the behind the scenes videos on how they made this record are super inspiring, using mobile apps that can record absolutely anywhere

but yeah audiotracker remains their best, likely has the best melodies -iora tahiti is also great. Idiology feels like where the avant garde rot set in, starting to take themselves a tad seriously. Lithops is even worse

"Lithops is even worse"
nah.
Jan spat his ideas in perfect form early on (see "Didot", "Uni Umit", "Queries" comp - which are all FLIPIN AWESOME & pretty much testify that Jan did most of the heavy lifting in Microstoria) but diminishing returns up to "ye Viols", where I got off the bus. i'm old now so MoM/ Lithops now fall into "can't be bothered to keep up with" category

the new album is one of my favs of the year and their best in like, what, a decade? 15 yrs?

Does the new album have them singing? I'd be intrigued to come back to what used to be my favourite group after 15 years, but the vocals ruined Idiology and Radical Connector, and after that album with the rock singer I just gave up on them.

Yeah the new albums is very good, especially the brilliant opening suite.

it does feature singing but it's all guest vocals and (notwithstanding that) it's all very "vocals as another instrument" rather than focused around toplines.

Ok, I guess I should give it a try... Guest vocals don't sound as bad an idea as their own bland singing.

Check it out Tuomas, it is very good

tuomas what do you think

man Dimensional People is a weird fuckin' record

another one in five weeks

https://exclaim.ca/music/article/mouse_on_mars_are_diving_deep_into_ai_with_their_new_album_aai

the preview track is pretty wild. not only that but apparently you can get a "slightly damaged" vinyl copy of Dimensional People for $10 on their Bandcamp - the damage is just a crunched up corner on the jacket

Rompatroullie just came up on shuffle. Man, what a brilliant track.
Favorite MOM moment.

You can vote for The Latent Space from the new album in the 2020 EOY poll. Just saying.

new album is uh...rather interesting. a lot of it sounds like a cursed version of the Von Sudenfed album. kinda meanders a bit and idk how I feel about the spoken word bits but a lot of this is pretty fun given the rather dry subject matter. may be one of those "five years ahead of its time" kinda albums

y'all are sleeping on this. super uncanny valley feeling to it, with a lot of sounds and voices that try to be 2 or 3 things at once. very much like the "this person does not exist" stuff where it seems legit until one odd sound or break makes you think "wait a minute here". doesn't sound like it's just imitating AI, I think a lot of it actually is. outside of PROTO I don't think I've heard an album like this before. when the dance grooves start about halfway in it gets really fun.

I loved the last album, I still need to check this one out

Ditto. Once I’ve got through all my Bandcamp Friday acquisitions (and am done with Todd), this is definitely next on the list.

maybe this will motivate some of you: half of this sounds like "Telephasic Workshop" to me

I've listened to this a few times now and I think it might be very, very good.

absolutely loving AAI

Total agreement from me.

it's very good. it has in common with Dimensional People that it feels long-form and ambitious, which makes me less likely to go back to it then the breezier late 90s stuff that made me fall in love with them. But once I make the commitment it definitely comes through

honestly after many spins I think their Top 5 are the three most recent + Ioara Tahiti and Autoditacker, idk in what order though

I would need Glam and Von Südenfed (unless that doesn’t count)

the track "Resume" on Dimensional People is so cool. the spoken word bit is from Swamp Dogg, the guy who is the patron saint of every bad album cover group on Facebook. a fucking virtuoso of the genre and he damn well knows it too. he references the hit "Baby, You're My Everything" from 1965 which got me to look that up. I really think this record (the MoM one) is on another level. each track is wildly different but they all keep sampling & referencing each other. you could probably write a long essay about how all the stuff on here connects. that post upthread..."it's a proper record"...very otm. lots of fun too.

btw yes I do think Von Sudenfed counts as a MoM album. did MES have a hand in the music or arrangements? probably to some degree but it's like...Radical Connector pt. 2.

Would anybody be interested in a new Mouse on Mars Album even if it was recorded 29 years ago?

— Mouse on Mars (@MoM_official) June 15, 2023

Especially if

following

its streaming in 20 minutes:

https://mouseonmars.bandcamp.com/live/bilk-listening-party

really enjoying thise

yeah its really nice. second half so far even better than the first