Mouse on Mars

German electronic legends Mouse on Mars create well-considered, funky dance music with zero interest in conventional electronics. Analog synthesizers ricochet from unstructured rhythms and land in a heaping pile of disco, ambient techno and dance experimentation. To keep their sonic science even more undefined and indistinguishable, they incorporate multiple string and wood instruments into some tracks. Their long history in the German electro scene separates them from the wannabes and has-beens as they continue to pay homage to their beginnings while discovering novel ways to saturate audiences with invigorating dance beats. Be warned though: experiencing them live is no picnic in the park. They suck listeners in with their broken sounds and detached sequences in order to obliterate ears and melt minds…including yours. (Appearing at Mayne Stage on October 17) –text: Angie Martin–photo: Szary

Mouse on Mars

I think a lot of the music we make could be for anybody. It’s not an elitist kind of wanking on a certain style of music. If you really want to explore this or if you like this track, it’s here for you. Just hear it.

story by Chris Castaneda

While speaking from L.A. on a recent Saturday afternoon, Jan St. Werner of Mouse On Mars makes quite the profound statement as we discuss the group’s latest record, Varcharz. “We kind of dove into a thick soup of sound in a certain way. And that, I think, was the intention with this album.”

“I like that phrase, ‘soup of sound.’ That’s a good one,” I say to St. Werner with a laugh over the phone. He realizes the metaphoric moment and runs with it. “You swim in there and it’s kind of nice and nutritious…” I follow his lead by adding, “It’s warm. It’s good for you,” to which St. Werner caps off the exchange by saying, “Definitely! But sometimes you bump into a big piece of vegetable.” Yes, you’ve been warned. Jan St. Werner wants you to watch out for the big piece of vegetable.

As the artistic director of the Amsterdam Institute for Electronic Music (STEIM), St. Werner can go into great depth when discussing the complex audio and visual possibilities of sound. At the same time, he can simply sum up the art of music as just a bowl of soup with lots of goodies inside. Asking about his earliest experience with music, St. Werner recalls some childhood memories involving his grandfather. “When I was a kid, my grandfather had to put on the record; it was like a ritual. I had to ask him, ‘May I listen to that thing?’ I would sit down and I would deliberately listen to the whole record all the way through. It starts there — that there’s a certain excitement with the privilege of spending that half-hour with that side of a record. And if it was a good day, then you got the other half-hour of the record,” he adds with a laugh.

The word that strikes me the most from St. Werner’s story is “privilege.” In a way, that attitude sums up what Mouse On Mars is all about. Along with Andi Toma, the duo from Germany has explored the freedoms of music for more than 10 years. So, to the eyes and ears of St. Werner, it’s that very freedom to destroy and rethink one’s own musical creations that makes this give-and-take relation with music such a privilege to possess.

On Varcharz, Mouse On Mars achieve exactly what they set out to accomplish with every album the band produces. “All our records are approved by Mouse On Mars. That’s a guarantee we can give,” says St. Werner. “On every record, we try to find a different idea — not as if we were different people — but we try and find a new reason why we would want to work with all those sounds and chop up everything so intensely, and then reconstruct it and offer that as a proposal to comment on music and contemporary music and music in general as what it can be. That’s why we make records.”

Mouse On Mars can be anything and everything to anyone. But what the band is not is easy to describe. “Society tries to make you a specialist, to stay in your niche. It’s hard for me to accept that. I don’t think that’s the nature of human beings,” says St. Werner. “This could be like pop music in a way. I think a lot of the music we make could be for anybody. It’s not an elitist kind of wanking on a certain style of music. If you really want to explore this or if you like this track, it’s here for you. Just hear it.”

Mouse on Mars :: with Holy Fuck and Lithops :: Empty Bottle :: November 7.

Mouse On Mars

You can take all your stupid flow plans, religions, we are all together as one.

story by Matt Meisinger
photo by R.C. Baban

Art is a powerful force. When made from the heart, the finished product may instill fear, happiness, or cause the consumer to want to copy the original – the most sincere form of flattery. The main objective, it seems, is to cause the viewer or listener to feel, and then to create if they choose to. A recent stamp art exhibit at Columbia College received a visit from federal agents. An early Ramones concert reportedly struck a chord with all attendees, resulting in many new garage bands. Two techno-minded Germans recently inspired an entire art exhibit.

Jan St. Werner and Andi Toma have been constructing revolutionary post-techno for over ten years now as Mouse On Mars. Their music inspired enough artists to stage an exhibit, which they opened last year at Kunsthalle Dusseldorf. Instead of making a remix album, the two forward-thinking young men had an idea. They would ask for artists’ representations of their mechanical grooves without the use of sound. Chicago Innerview spoke with Jan from his home in Germany about that exhibit, his inspiration and the music business.

“Our original idea was to collect pieces that did not necessarily deal with music. Anything from painting to sculpture was fair game. We didn’t want them to encounter musical problems. We wanted to see some different approaches, so we asked them to do representations and comment on our music. Not being able to use sound, they had to see our music from a different angle,” Jan explains. A previously released book by the pair was the main springboard for the show, “Doku/Fiction: Mouse On Mars Reviewed and Remixed.”

Not ones to crave the spotlight of the show, they wanted the artists personality to come through in their work. “We wanted it to be personal. We very often have an idea flash, then that bubble will explode. We wanted to capture those fleeting ideas as we inspired them through the structure of our music.” How did these artists do? “Some interpretations were lame, some brilliant, some were very funny. It ended up working very much like a remix album.”

Their latest release, 2004′s Radical Connector, was the muse of many aforementioned artists. On their latest, Mouse On Mars have created a mechanical world in which man and machine mesh into one. The songs are densely layered and rhythmically structured. Fellow Sonig label artist Niobe adds honey voiced, dreamy vocals to four tracks while percussionist Dodo Nkishi performs the rest of the minimalist vocals, all written by Werner and Toma – who take a cubist approach to their formation of the finished lyric. “We come up with the lyrics together like blueprints, then we chop them up, see what’s left. We want the lines to be ambiguous, as we put our ideas together and see how they differ.” From “All the Old Powers”: “The free, the self defined, the anti-cliché, the radical connector of the non-linearity. The principle of difference holds things apart, we shrink and we grow, a natural art.”

Mouse On Mars also uses a technique of totally clearing their heads before brainstorming for new songs. “You can’t come into it with a specific idea or feeling, you will end up with something totally different. If you shoot for funky or noisy, the track can become gentle or calm. It is always a surprise. Connector is our most outspoken work, bringing funkiness and pop together more densely than before.” 2000′s Niun Niggung was acoustically symphonic and lush, while 2001′s Idiology was strange and choppy. Those two ideas have been streamlined on Connector, balancing instruments and computers into space-age lounge music.

One track all pistons were pumping on is “Blood Comes,” a chugging, chortling mix of man and machine. It serves as the soundtrack to the digital age that we are all increasingly surrounded by daily. This is perhaps the best representation of the man/machine relationship since “Rockit” by Herbie Hancock, and his corresponding video with piecemeal robots trying to clean a house.

With a spaced-out beat that could be off a Parliament album, every verse picks up new hisses and gurgles from their digital minds. Symphonies of blips jab and poke each other while the vocal becomes more robotic every time. The beat also contracts and pumps like a heartbeat, and the repeating lyric ‘keeps pumping’ evokes the picture of a machine, blurring the line between metal and flesh. All this and you could dance to it. Truly German ingenuity at its best.

The ideological framework of the tune is semi-nihilistic, focusing on the base idea that we are all human first and should discard all categories above that. “You can take all your stupid flow plans, religions, we are all together as one,” Jan explains.

Instead of dropping various Krautrock band names like Can or Kraftwerk, Jan declares his inspiration is right there in front of him every day. “It’s good food. Give us great food; we will play a great show, everybody will be happy. We also listen to all kinds of music, all genres of books and machines. I like to do some swimming, books, Fellini movies, but no television.”

In the past, a live Mouse On Mars show has had guest performers, so what can we expect for their Chicago performance? “This will be a DJ set, but we are not simply playing our records. We chop up our music and improvise over it, like improvised free jazz. You can dance to it, and it is totally unpredictable.” Jan got the idea of improvising from jazz but also from mind numbing DJs who take a by-the-numbers, fog-and-strobe-light approach to their set. “They might play good music, but you can’t dance to it. Hours and hours they play the same thing.”

The chance to see a totally unique set that will not be played in the same way again should be interesting. Not only their work but also sample noise and cheering is all chopped up and fed into Mouse On Mars tracks with elements of their album. Their computers give them the ability to change tempo at any time and feed off the crowd. “Our shows work really well with open-minded people. They dance and go crazy, and we love it.”

As for the future of Mouse On Mars, Jan has been busy on yet another side project. In addition to Microstoria and Lithops, he has been working on a “noise dance floor disco project, which will be done by end of year.” Also keeping him busy is time spent in Amsterdam as a concert curator in a blossoming electronic scene there, and working on a sound room there. “It is a real inventive studio. You can go there with the wildest ideas and see them realized in front of you.” He is also working on a radio project. If that wasn’t enough, they are also putting finishing touches on a live Mouse On Mars album to be out this fall, a live album featuring a live band and their friend Dodo Nkishi on vocals and drums.

Mouse on Mars :: Sonotheque :: June 9.