Stars of the Lid - The Tired Sounds Of (CD 1)
Stars of the Lid - The Tired Sounds Of (CD 2)
Brian Eno - Music For Airports
Manitoba - Start Breaking My Heart
Jan Jelinek - Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records
Mouse on Mars - Autoditacker
With its reedy horns, jazzy keyboards and cymbal laden break beats Manitoba's classy 2001 album Start Breaking My Heart feels like St Germain's Tourist's (a very popular album in jazz lounges and student bedsits from the year before) baby brother. An obvious reference point is Four Tet but it also reminds me a lot of the early Efterklang albums when they were experimenting with clicks and glitches, and Penguin Cafe Orchestra particularly on tracks like People Eating Fruit with its gentle slightly off key organ refrain and choral singing and Children Play Well Together which sounds like the noise a telephone makes when left off the hook (something the PCO were prone to do).
What of the Caribou name? Manitoba musician Dan Snaith works under several monikers and this exact same album was re-released in 2006 under the name Caribou (the cover is the same except for the tiny type in the top left corner) after he was threatened with legal action over the Manitoba name by singer Richard Manitoba (yes, exactly... who?). Snaith quite reasonably suggested this was akin to The Smiths being sued by John Smith.
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| Dan Snaith as Caribou (always sensible to put your name on your school equipment) |
Although Snaith plays live as part of a band this album is a solo produced affair. This is surprising as the music sounds very authentic and organic. It is verging upon the laid back easy listening end of the electronica spectrum but the music contains enough unusual turns, weird sounds and random rhythms to be both a pleasant listen and an interesting one. As such it has a soul which you don't always get in the mathematically perfect synthesizer music of a band like Kraftwerk for instance, or the aforementioned Tourist come to that.
I love the modern art cover too, which heads up this post. I can't quite make out whether it is a painting or a photo.
Falling into the trap of comparisons again, German DJ duo Mouse On Mars remind me of U-ziq with their attractive melodies over energetic beats and deep bass. It's a lot heavier and faster than Manitoba. It's definitely dance heavy and doesn't take itself too seriously with a smattering of silly noises and twee tunes.
Nice. Ed.
Maybe it's a trademark sound they use on all their albums. But there's a lot more than trapped mice beneath the grooves - the boys have thrown everything at the mix to produce a dense multi layered record within which I expect to hear new things on each listen. Is it 'Techno' perhaps? Not sure. But it is a bit like Autechre although an easier listen than that. Released as long ago as 1997 it is not surprising there are elements of drum 'n' bass on Autoditacker (how do you pronounce that?) too.
Despite this vintage I was tempted to say the music is ahead of its time or perhaps timeless. I'm not sure if that's truly the case. It is indeed more than 20 years old which seems incredible. But that's not due to the revolutionary electronic sounds necessarily (the likes of countrymen Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk began mining their seams of electronic music in the early 70s of course). It's more a sobering admission on my part of the passing of time and a realisation that there is a wealth of music out there I've never heard which has been around donkeys years.
20 years ago - this was in a pre-9/11 world (I know that's not relevant to music particularly but do you, like me, divide the past into pre and post 2001 sometimes? I remember imagining where I would be and how old I'd be in the year 2000. Jeez.
Anyway the technology may not have been that revolutionary by 1997 but 'MoM' are a fascinating and original addition to the electronic music scene. Formed in that hotbed of musical innovation Dusseldorf in 1993 micey duo Jan St. Werner and Andi Toma have produced 11 studio albums right up to this year's Dimensional People (Autoditacker was their third) and have collaborated with artists as diverse as Stereolab and The Fall.
I love the modern art cover too, which heads up this post. I can't quite make out whether it is a painting or a photo.
Brimming with fragmented melodies, spacey dissonances, edgy breaks, strange streams of sonic particles, and chaotic overlays.
Falling into the trap of comparisons again, German DJ duo Mouse On Mars remind me of U-ziq with their attractive melodies over energetic beats and deep bass. It's a lot heavier and faster than Manitoba. It's definitely dance heavy and doesn't take itself too seriously with a smattering of silly noises and twee tunes.
Many tracks have intriguing high pitched squeaks in the background which sound like er hem, mice! Mice trapped inside one of the Boards of Canada laptops. I like that, let's use that. Ed.
These mice sound not so much from Mars, but more like mice trapped deep inside one of the Boards of Canada laptops.
Nice. Ed.
Maybe it's a trademark sound they use on all their albums. But there's a lot more than trapped mice beneath the grooves - the boys have thrown everything at the mix to produce a dense multi layered record within which I expect to hear new things on each listen. Is it 'Techno' perhaps? Not sure. But it is a bit like Autechre although an easier listen than that. Released as long ago as 1997 it is not surprising there are elements of drum 'n' bass on Autoditacker (how do you pronounce that?) too.
Despite this vintage I was tempted to say the music is ahead of its time or perhaps timeless. I'm not sure if that's truly the case. It is indeed more than 20 years old which seems incredible. But that's not due to the revolutionary electronic sounds necessarily (the likes of countrymen Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk began mining their seams of electronic music in the early 70s of course). It's more a sobering admission on my part of the passing of time and a realisation that there is a wealth of music out there I've never heard which has been around donkeys years.
20 years ago - this was in a pre-9/11 world (I know that's not relevant to music particularly but do you, like me, divide the past into pre and post 2001 sometimes? I remember imagining where I would be and how old I'd be in the year 2000. Jeez.
Anyway the technology may not have been that revolutionary by 1997 but 'MoM' are a fascinating and original addition to the electronic music scene. Formed in that hotbed of musical innovation Dusseldorf in 1993 micey duo Jan St. Werner and Andi Toma have produced 11 studio albums right up to this year's Dimensional People (Autoditacker was their third) and have collaborated with artists as diverse as Stereolab and The Fall.
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| Mice on Mars contemplate their leads |
The Mouse On Mars website has an impenetrably long bio employing an academic English I feel a native speaker would rarely use:
A disorientating mix of pop and experimentation running from noise to strange beauty, their music is at the same time resolutely avant-garde and playful, though always charged with a destructive compulsion. Brimming with fragmented melodies, spacey dissonances, edgy breaks, strange streams of sonic particles, and chaotic overlays, Mouse On Mars' fluid sound aesthetic reflects their general mutability, which is deeply rooted in their restless ingenuity, quirky sense of humour, and fearless non-conformism.
There's much more but perhaps worth noting...
Multiplicity and diversity, in all of their cacophonous glory (including failure), form the crux of Mouse On Mars’ artistic agenda. Imprecision, noise, dissonance, intuition, speculation, spontaneity, improvisation, imagination, connectivity, loss of control, and overload constitute some of their many vehicles. Mouse On Mars’ musical and artistic universe thus emerges only through a holistic consideration of their extended constellation of collaborations, projects, and references.
Sounds interesting doesn't it? Have a listen to their cacophonous glory (including failure?).
A disorientating mix of pop and experimentation running from noise to strange beauty, their music is at the same time resolutely avant-garde and playful, though always charged with a destructive compulsion. Brimming with fragmented melodies, spacey dissonances, edgy breaks, strange streams of sonic particles, and chaotic overlays, Mouse On Mars' fluid sound aesthetic reflects their general mutability, which is deeply rooted in their restless ingenuity, quirky sense of humour, and fearless non-conformism.
There's much more but perhaps worth noting...
Multiplicity and diversity, in all of their cacophonous glory (including failure), form the crux of Mouse On Mars’ artistic agenda. Imprecision, noise, dissonance, intuition, speculation, spontaneity, improvisation, imagination, connectivity, loss of control, and overload constitute some of their many vehicles. Mouse On Mars’ musical and artistic universe thus emerges only through a holistic consideration of their extended constellation of collaborations, projects, and references.
Jan Rohlf
Sounds interesting doesn't it? Have a listen to their cacophonous glory (including failure?).
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