Mouse on Mars
Mouse on Mars |
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Mouse on Mars is a duo from Germany (Jan St. Werner, from Düsseldorf, and Andi Toma, from Köln) who have been making electronic music since 1993. Their music is a quirky and sometimes kitschy blend of techno, trance, disco, and ambient with a heavy dollop of analog synth sounds. Their music also utilises live conventional rock instruments such as drums, bass and guitar.
History
Their first album, Vulvaland, was released in 1994 on the British record label Too Pure. This is considered their "straightest" and most focused album, mixing ambient and techno. Their second album, Iaora Tahiti, has a much more playful feel and encompasses a wider variety of electronic dance genres.
Over the years, their sound has increased in warmth and playfulness. On their fourth album Niun Niggung (released on Domino Records in 2000), the live instruments start to become more prominent. Idiology, their fifth album, has continued this trend while their sixth album Radical Connector, has a more "pop" feel. Both of these albums also increasingly include vocals, primarily by touring drummer Dodo Nkishi. Their sound seems to have taken a large veer away from the stylistics of their last two efforts on their newest album Varcharz which has a firmly experimental electronic foundation.
Mouse on Mars regularly perform live as a three-piece, with Toma & St. Werner augmented by drummer Dodo Nkishi. In 2005, they released their first live album, titled Live 04.
Mouse on Mars collaborated in the studio and toured with Stereolab in the mid 1990s - the results can be heard on Stereolab's Dots and Loops album and the associated Miss Modular single, and Mouse on Mars' Cache Cœur Naïf EP. Around the same time, they co-produced an album called Time Pie for ex-Kraftwerk drummer Wolfgang Flür's new project, Yamo.
St. Werner has released solo work under the name Lithops and partners with Markus Popp of Oval for Microstoria.
While releasing albums on British indie labels, Mouse on Mars started their own label, Sonig, on which they release their own work and that of other German artists. They have also produced a number of EPs and have recorded music for film soundtracks as well as remixing the work of other musicians.
Mouse on Mars are set to collaborate with Mark E. Smith of The Fall in a band called Von Südenfed in 2007.
Discography
Albums
- 1994 Vulvaland
- 1995 Iaora Tahiti
- 1997 Autoditacker
- 1997 Instrumentals
- 1998 Glam
- 2000 Niun Niggung
- 2001 Idiology
- 2004 Radical Connector
- 2005 Live 04
- 2006 Varcharz
Compilations
- 2003 Rost Pocks: The EP Collection
Singles / EPs
- 1997 Cache Coeur Naif
- 1997 Twift
- 1999 Pickly Dred Rhizzoms
- 1999 Distroia
- 1999 Diskdusk
- 2001 Actionist Respoke
- 2002 Do It
- 2002 Agit Itter It It
- 2005 Wipe That Sound
Trivia
Regarding their 2006 album Varcharz: A Varchar is a technical term describing a data type in SQL. The abbreviation means "variable character (field)".