Monkeytown Records have announced that after 9 studio albums released on well established labels such as Domino, Thrill Jockey, Ipecac and Rough Trade, Mouse on Mars have now found a home on Monkeytown Records. After Siriusmo’s “Mosaik” and “Pearls & Embarrassment”, Modeselektor’s “Monkeytown” and eLan’s “Next 2 Last”, Mouse on Mars will release their 11th album, Parastrophics on March 5, 2012 as Monkeytown’s 5th artist album.Listen to album track Chordblocker, Cinnamon Toasted here:
Mouse on Mars “Chordblocker, Cinnamon Toasted” feat. Steven Jo (MONKEYTOWN022) Out Feb 24 by Modeselektor
Over the course of ten albums – not to mention an avalanche of side projects, remixes and collaborations – Jan St Werner and Andi Toma of Mouse On Mars established themselves as two of the most inventive and unpredictable artists in electronic music. But since they delivered the bracing, angular salvo that was Varcharz back in 2006, there has been an uncharacteristic period of silence.
In 2012, that silence is broken. Mouse On Mars’ triumphant return comes in the shape of Parastrophics, a life-affirming and constantly surprising album which is crammed with ideas, exuberance and sheer kinetic energy. It’s like listening to the entire history of pop music – distilled, refined and crystallized into a string of compulsive new shapes, full of glitter, intrigue and addictive detail. Atomised fragments from two lifetimes of listening flare and fade, tiny scraps of memory shrapnel hover, tantalizing and insubstantial, before being whisked away by the next impatient idea.
But despite all that restless curiosity, Parastrophics also demonstrates a peerless command of pace. Whereas some previous Mouse On Mars releases have bordered on the frenetic, their latest displays a subtle but persuasive sense of control. Even when tempos climb, 303s squirm and kick / snare patterns snap to brisk attention, there’s an elegance to the way that each element slips in and out of the mix which speaks, whisper it, of maturity. Parastrophics is as a playful as ever, but it’s never throwaway. The closing track „Seaqz“ is a gorgeous slice of space-age mood music, measured in tone despite all its microscopic activity, and it brings into focus the beguiling sense of confidence that suffuses the whole record. All of which is a
roundabout way of saying that, after six years away, Mouse On Mars have come back with their best record yet.
Tracklisting:
01. the beach stop (ISRC Code: DEOE81100181)
02. chordblocker, cinnamon toasted (ISRC Code: DEOE81100182)
03. metrotopy (ISRC Code: DEOE81100183)
04. wienuss (ISRC Code: DEOE81100184)
05. they know your name (ISRC Code: DEOE81100185)
06. syncropticians (ISRC Code: DEOE81100186)
07. cricket (ISRC Code: DEOE81100187)
08. imatch (ISRC Code: DEOE81100188)
09.
polaroyced (ISRC Code: DEOE81100189)
10. gearknot cherry (ISRC Code: DEOE81100190)
11. bruised to imwimper (ISRC Code: DEOE81100191)
12. baku hipster (ISRC Code: DEOE81100192)
13. seaqz (ISRC Code: DEOE81100193)
Mouse On Mars might have emerged as part of the great 1990s new wave of electronic music, but their restless, irreverent and wildly inventive work has always set them apart from their contemporaries. For Jan St. Werner and Andi Toma there is no division between the cerebral and the physical – they combine a connoisseur’s love of sonic texture with a hedonistic urge to dance. Even at its most complex, their music never feels too intellectual, and even at its most experimental it’s never forbidding.
An album with singing bass drums, screwed up beats, tinnitus synths and some of the deepest bass the universe has to offer, Parastrophics is a thriving vision of the other side of experimental music. Discordance turns into pop as Alice in Wonderland bounces her booty to laser bass sounds, the likes of which would make Walt Disney jealously ponder the question, “Why didn’t I think of that?!” Parastrophics is glamorous, funky and deep. No speakers exist that could display all the details of such grand production.
