 MOUSE
ON MARS
only Austria, former
Yugoslavia & former “Eastern Block countries”
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Mouse on Mars formed in 1993
when Andi Toma, from Dusseldorf, and Jan St. Werner,
from Cologne, met at a speed metal festival in Stockholm
and decided to form a band.
With seven albums and nine e.p.'s
Mouse On Mars have gained a reputation
as one of the most innovative
and productive bands of today's
popular music scene. "the
true inheritors of kraftwerk's
mantle" (MUZAK Magazine).
The band itself never encouraged
this comparison. They rather consider
their efforts as fragmented and
always reforming ideas which are
not after the clean design of
pop aesthetics but offer a broken
and profound criticism on a "one
world one sound" equalisation.
"Nothing is decided in the
music itself but its construction
as a statement: even intervals
and odd power chords arrayed in
polistic structures, keyed in
through micro-blasting tirades
of resistance, display a world
of madness and diversity"
(the HUB, 12.01)
Their first release in 1994 was
a single: "Frosch"-
"lfo/ krautrock toytown toonz"
(NME). So fresh were the sounds
that critics were at a loss for
words "One Man's thingy is
another man's wotsit." (melody
maker). Their debut album "Vulvaland"
went straight into the UK indie
top 5.
Musically Mouse On Mars create
densely layered tracks with the
intended results being grounded
between radical experimentalsism
and timeless pop appeal. Designed
to yield more with repeated listens,
songs are minutely detailed. Drum
tracks, for example, often contain
over twenty different layers:
live drums, programmed, digitally
processed and various combinations
and/or mutations of the aforementioned.
Fills and breaks are set, arranged,
and placed individually as opposed
to being looped. The results are
rich, deep, wonderfully varied.
"Mouse on Mars combine so
many sounds from myriad genres,
asking the listener to discard
their preconceptions, wherever
possible, and have what jazzbos
in Tennessee call "big ears."
Mike McGonigal
Or to quote Rob Young from the
WIRE: "Mouse On Mars tracks
are lush mini adventures or sound
movies in multiple dimensions:
densly layered vertically, constantly
changing horizontally in time,
it's a fully articulated body
of music."
Since 1997 Mouse On Mars have
run their own record label Sonig.
Being fully independent from major
record companies they have established
their very own platform to spread
their ideas. Over the last couple
of years their concert tours have
extended from Europe, Japan and
the USA to South America, East
Europe and Asia.
They have also produced records
for Stereolab and members of Kraftwerk,
they made music for an ill-fated
Tony Danza film, and worked on
remixes for the High Llamas, Cibo
Matto, Pram, Anne Clark, the Pastels,
Merz, Towa Tei, Oval and others.
They recently worked together
with house luminary Matthew Herbert
and still find the time to let
St.Werner work with Oval's Markus
Popp on the digital off-shoot
"Microstoria".
Mouse On Mars have paved the way for a continuously
growing gang of German and international sound villains
to weave analogue and digital, electronic and non-electronic
sounds in a totally new, organic fabric. Not without
reason have great swarms of independent and other
tinkerers, post-, kraut- and general rockers, techno
types and avant-garde scoundrels included this darned
modern stuff in their daily menu. |
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