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'

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