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Roman Polanski stated in "Chinatown" that "Politicians, buildings and whores all become respectable if they get old enough." The same seems to hold true in the notoriously fickle field of electronic music.
All you need do is show a little endurance, survive the wane of a few trends, and bingo: instant veneration. Some artists, like Aphex Twin, have done it by taking whatever happens to be popular and doing a singular, stellar version of it before moving on. Others have achieved longevity by plowing stoically ahead as if in a vacuum, with hardly a glance around to see what anyone else is doing.
Mouse on Mars, the duo of Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner, fall firmly into the second camp. For the past decade Toma and St. Werner have been honing their chops, working overtime to become world champions of a game that no one else is playing. The result is a suite of highly enjoyable albums without expiration dates, records that sound timeless and fresh years after their creation.
In addition to their main work in Mouse on Mars, both Toma and St. Werner contribute to numerous side projects, such as St. Werner's solo sideline as Lithops and experimental forays into ambience with Markus Popp as Microstoria. Additionally, the two maintain Sonig, an active record label. All these extracurriculars contribute added richness and depth to their sound as Mouse on Mars.
Their latest album, "Radical Connector," is their most potent and colorful release in years. According to St. Werner, the band "wanted to create something more diverse and quite profound, and which had a different dynamic" from the last three Mouse on Mars records, which can be grouped together as a cohesive trilogy, he noted.
It's a slightly surprising statement, since "Idiology," Mouse on Mars' last record, found the band departing markedly from the burbling synths and hiccupping rhythms of "Niun Niggung" and "Autoditacker" in favor of a sound with precedents in live rock music, including a very peculiar breed of vocals.
But, St. Werner contends, "every record starts with the record before. Every record shows, in a way, what you haven't succeeded in. Some people didn't get the pattern of 'Idiology.'"
Is "Radical Connector" more transparent than its predecessor? Nothing in the Mouse on Mars universe is ever very straightforward, but the new record is definitely more infectious, and almost impossible not to like. The vocals are back, provided both by the band themselves as well as familiar collaborators like Niobe and Dodo Nkishi, and in more traditional pop format than ever. "Detected Beats" has an especially live feel, and features a clipped voice-over above a smeared back-beat that showcases an itinerant organ-and-marimba melody worthy of Stereolab, with whom Mouse on Mars have frequently toured.
On the gleeful "Wipe that Sound," one of "Radical Connector's" early highlights, Nkishi's imperatives are made in a swirling vortex of choppy, stuttering beats and static that's wildly danceable - almost like a Timbaland jam remixed in the 23rd century and broadcast back in time to confound and delight us. Which raises another of Mouse on Mars' most unique and likeable qualities: It's rare that "serious" electronic musicians manage to be really interesting and at the same time as unabashedly fun, and funny, as Toma and St. Werner do.
St. Werner consents that "Radical Connector" is "more of a band record" than previous outings, but is careful to add that "you don't talk about that stuff during the process of the record." Instead, he notes cryptically, success requires "creating a space where the music can happen."
Of the band's upcoming appearance at the Parish, St. Werner describes a scene of coordinated dance moves, white clothes and fireworks. Of course he's kidding, but such theatrics wouldn't necessarily clash with the hyped weirdness that Mouse on Mars bring to the table. Regardless of costuming and pyrotechnics, St. Werner and Toma's music is even more inexplicable and stunning in person.
Mouse on Mars performs at The Parish tonight with Ratatat and Junior Boys.
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