Mouse on Mars

< /wigga > !!!

damn MoM put me on my nerves. It makes me feel the same as jazz: I feel there is quite a lot of genius into their records, their interviews and fans seem to back that up, but I don't get it at all and feel very dumb about it.
I actually have 2 MoM albums, Vulvaland and Audioditacker, bought them because of hype in my snob-avantgardist teen years. I like vulvaland, soothing, not too taxing, but everytime I finish listening to audioditacker trying to get into it I feel so anxious I have to put one of my favourites records verily loud just to remember what really loving a record feels like. One part of myself says "pretentious synth wankers stop listening or it'll hurt your head", the other says "I'm missing something I'M MISSING SOMETHING HERE"
Man, I've even tried listening to it in all my mushroom trips to see if I can gain an attachment to it, but I always quickly ignore it.

my use of the word 'pretentious' above was not a direct criticism on Autechre, who I've heard absolutely nothing of, but a criticism of the 'if it's melodic isn't not real maaaan' nonsense.

"There is too much sterile-sounding, stilted electronic music out there of the Autechre variety. If you're going to make drum-oriented music, please, have a sense of rhythm."

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.

Who wants to describe the new album to someone with no slsk, a broken soundcard and no promo love?

It's poppier. Vocals on every track. MoM meets Daft Punk meets Prince.

And am I to assume that this is the best thing ever?

wow! that sounds awesome! are we talking about dirty mind prince or what?

You're not tricking me again, god dammit

I like

slsk this bastard!!

It's technopunkpop.

wheres the punk come from?

Is there anything ambient/orchestral on it? I would miss that if it were gone

The punk comes from the bits that rock, messily. And the vocals. No ambient, orchestral bits. Use old records for that.

MoM's newest is maybe their best, i think... having only had a month+ with it, it's too hard to say yet... they're one of my favorites though, and hands down the best live act i have EVER seen... i have never seen such a sweaty crowd (LA, el rey, idiology tour). Autoditacker is actually what got me into electronic music along with aphex stuff, like most people... but while i don't listen to aphex much anymore, i still put MoM in all the time. i definitely prefer their poppier stuff (auto-, niun, idiology, and now, radical connector), but sound design-wise they're fantastic no matter what they're doing. plus the lyrics are brilliant... it makes contempo philosophizing fun.

most rock people, i should clarify... aphex big bridge for rock people my age (23)...

do the synths still sound like they have a bad cold? this really makes or breaks the deal for me.

absolutely... possibly tuberculosis... but other times they take big deep zen breaths, hold them in for half a song and then cough them out

not to hate, but just want to mention this as someone who's been buying every release on sight for the last ten years... this is the first record of theirs I can't listen to, and I've tried several times over the last few months. I am happy they're obviously about to connect to a whole new audience, but I have to hop off the bus for this album.

I've yet to see anything less than rave reviews in print & online though, right up to 'album of the year', many from people I generally respect, so don't let me stop you.

there is something to be said for the stylistic consistency of mouse on mars (and the live-dodo-bird rarity of that style, given) that they inspire that kind of collector-scum wallet brutality, almost to the level of AFX and Stereolab but without all the japan-only/limited edition shit going on.

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?

a woman named niobe... and then dodo and maybe even the boys
themselves? has it even dropped yet? don't think so. i've yet
to see proper credits. hard to imagine getting sick of this
album so long as i don't overdoit in the beginning.

It's Niobe that's the dealbreaker for me.

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...

meant to type:

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

I love this record. Took me a while to get into them, only after I got a free copy of Idiology, which is now one of my favourite records ever. I saw them with stereolab *many* years ago but didn't get it. I will be sorely dissapointed if they don't tour this properly.

Dusted: Mouse on Mars interview
http://www.dustedmagazine.com/features/276

bump.

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?

fuck.

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.

This - http://www.quio.poemproducer.com/ (mp3's thru link) is what 'Radical Connector' should have sounded like! :-O

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).

Glam is awesome, their best imo.

>> is what 'Radical Connector' should have sounded like!

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

wow Brad chill tf out.

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.

sorry, just hate to see such a fine album dismissed filppantly , and for personal (somewhat obvious if you know my history) reasons, I hate when so called fans turn on a group for a percieved "change of direction".
No idea how you can call RC sonically boring. it's anything but. I know of few other electronic based records that are as elastically funky and incredibly dense. then mix in the
almost Satie-esque orchestral/melodic elements and yes, pop song aspects and there you go. easily my fave MoM, and I've been listening since the beginning.

What, exactly, was predictable about Radical Connector?

It sounds just like the other glitchpop records their contemporaries were making in 2001 when they made their best record!

Cheers to them for "following their muse" or whatever but it was the worst possible direction they could have gone in

If it seems like I'm 'turning on them' I'm not at all. I'll still be tuned in to their next move & hopefully even get to see them live this year (they're on quite a few festival line ups).

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? :-)

I don't think it was a bad direction to move towards, but I expected them to sound much more comfortable with it than the record did.

so you can divine the comfort level of the artist ?
that's extraordinary ! methinks you may be projecting a tad.
In any case, that's a rather nutty criteria for judging the merits of a record.

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'.

Hmmm, you're misunderstanding somewhat.

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.

'Predictable' only in regards to their previous work
Maybe I'm misunderstanding - but Radical wasn't like anything else they'd ever done before. I don't remember singing, for starters, on any of their previous work. Even if you removed the vocals the music itself wasn't quite like anything they'd done before either. I know their sound had evolved over the previous years but even with that in mind I would not have ever predicted them to put out an album anything at all like Radical.

Hmmm. Okay I guess I mean I heard that this was going to be a more commercial 'pop' album & was psyched about what they might bring to it. Less noise and more ... well I had no idea what the hell they might do really!

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.

I still think they have the potential to be amazing at it for what it's worth. They can write amazingly original melodies using sounds that are also very, very original & almost totally outside of whatever the current fashions might be.

ack. really 'leaving it' now.

Sorta know what fandango means about the "comfort" aspect; for all that the grooves on Radical Connector would appear to be their most straightforward, they're actually more awkward-sounding and less, er, fluid thant the group's previous stuff. It's like they were trying to add a house element to their music without having actually heard of house before, only reading about it.

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.

are those complaints ? because that criticism is one of the best things about that album.
it feels GREAT. as in elastic, alive, non-pedantic about what "kind" of music it's "supposed" to be....ack ! christ, I give up on you folks.

I was thinking today about how much it bothers me that people think of Idiology as a transitional "blowing-off-steam" record. It may be a little sloppy, but there are so many new great ideas on it that I can't believe it isn't more people's favorite. When it came out it sounded to me like a NEW krautrock record, like what Faust and that lot would be doing if they were just coming out. (And, yeah, imagine Faust playing "Presence" -- nice!) It lags in the middle a bit, but I think the first six songs and the last two are the strongest testament to what they're capable of.

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 think the moment they decided to add singing to their music was when it went wrong. I mean, they did use vocals before Idiology, but in a processed manner, more as effects. I wouldn't mind them doing decent uplifting house music, but I tried to listen to their latest album, and the vocals were just so soulless, emotionless. Another thing which can be traced all the way to Niun Niggung is that they start using these these distorted, drill'n'bass/IDM beats, which I personally hate. In retrospect it feels like they hit their peak with Autoditacker; that's when they found that special quality, that otherwordly sound that was distinctly theirs and no one elses. Now bands like Yello, when they find their own special thing, can stick with it for decades, but I guess you can't blame MoM for wanting to move forward. It's just that, the more they've moved "forward", the less distinct they sound, and the less interested I am with them.

[sorry, just hate to see such a fine album dismissed filppantly , and for personal (somewhat obvious if you know my history) reasons, I hate when so called fans turn on a group for a percieved "change of direction".] -- Brad Laner

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.