Mouse On Mars – Parastrophics (Monkeytown)
4/5
By: Jonathan Falcone
Over 10 albums, Mouse on Mars have created one of the most discernible sounds within electronic music of the last twenty years. Jan St Werner and Andi Toma have been quiet recently though, their last album Varcharz was released in 2006. Some will be glad and others disappointed that this is very much a Mouse On Mars album. There’s no real diversion from their skewed pop formula but their sound has stayed just as broad in harvesting the good bits of today’s pop aesthetic and threading them through a kaleidoscope of dance music’s back beats.
Opening with ‘The Beach Stop’, that recognisably frenetic splicing of short sharp rhythms underpinned with long phasing keyboards creates a tension building contrast. It could be an album by The Books condensed into thirty second before it breaks into loose, affected drum sounds and pop keyboards inserted seemingly at random. On top, a lady softly talks like the introduction of a Prince album, welcoming you to the dawn of the revolution in suitably breathless whispers. It’s a speedy three minutes of pop orchestration.
Mouse n Mars have always had an irreverent approach, especially when it comes to vocals. They like using the editing process, often chopping up hip-hop vocals for purely rhythmic ends, and the words become an infantile by-product. In ‘Chordblocker, Cinnamon Toasted Crunch’, lyrics are spat that sound like “Cock-blocker, Facebook’s a Cock-blocker” but could really be anything. As Hawaiian slide guitar waves through the bursts of aggression it’s a pleasing contrast, the music’s big, warm and fuzzy and the drums even bigger and harder.
There’s an inherent dichotomy to the IDM stable and Mouse On Mars are one of the few acts to have found a way to appease it. Turn it up and it needs to get you dancing, ‘They Know Your Name’ will do this, it has more bass than Diplo and shimmies across four minutes of floor pounding. But it should be a self-sufficient listen’. Go too heavily toward this end and you enter the realm of abstract brain-food that turns into a self-indulgent chin stroking exercise. Mouse On Mars have always had the balance using a bright, bursting set of sounds to grab attention and then using them in a different way. ‘Syncropticians’ is downbeat, slow, a more Boards Of Canada styled offering yet it still buzzes in fuzz, winds up and breaks down. Endless adventures occur within a slow, languishing tempo. Parastrophics is Mouse On Mars back, on strong form and messing with your head and feet. A very welcome return.
Artists in this article: Mouse On Mars
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