Mouse On Mars @ Gretchen Berlin | Saturday, 17.05.2014

As part of their 21st anniversary celebrations and following the release of two first class albums on Modeselektors Monkeytown label last year, the electronica duo originally from Cologne now based in Berlin Mouse on Mars play a special hometown show at Gretchen this May.

Mouse on Mars is one of the few electronic bands to stand the test of time. Constantly reinventing themselves, they have taken electronica to new heights with a unique blend of sound annihilation, fragmented melodies and an impassioned hatred of conformity. For nearly two deacades, Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner have sweated over burning consoles to create a new musical language, only to twist it again into thousands of myriad distortions.

Mouse On Mars | 21 Again
httpv://https://youtube.com/watch?v=cx4MyVo0i8k

Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner collaborated with The Fall’s Mark E. Smith as Von Südenfed and released Tromatic Reflexxions on Domino in 2007. Both Toma and St. Werner produce independently for their Sonig label. St. Werner has worked on solo records under several monikers, written pieces for acoustic instrumentation and electronics, did music for installations, and acted as the artistic director of the Amsterdam Institute for Electronic Music, STEIM. His blog fantastic analysis is updated regularly. Toma has produced Moondog, Stereolab, Junior Boys and The Fall, amongst others.

Mouse On Mars | Creme Theme
httpv://https://youtube.com/watch?v=lt3jnsv6x7o

One of their most recent projects Paeanumnion has been as unique as the rest of their career – an orchestral piece which didn’t play by any of the rules. As St. Werner said, “it was a way for us to carry on being an electronic band, only without electronics”. As ever, he was not being entirely serious. Both Jan and Andi were on stage throughout this hour-long voyage, playing their own digitally-crafted sounds and processing the orchestra at the same time. For this event Mouse on Mars have created their own musical software which they also used for the production of Parastrophics.

Mouse On Mars | Polaroyced

In early 2014 the sound terrorists released their first ’digital only’ EP Spezmodia. Five Happy Hardcore inspired, Gabba reminding club tracks aim to push both listeners and dancers to their limits and reflect what you experience at a Mouse on Mars’ live show: an extremly high energy level, no time to breath and breaks and twists close to an epileptic collapse. ‘Spezmodia’ is only the ouverture to an extremely busy Mouse on Mars year. With 21 AGAIN they celebrate their 21st anniversary and release a packed boxset on Monkeytown featuring 21 new collaborations, archival material, a selection of their four BBC Peel sessions, a cd of their Orchestral work Paeanumnion plus a book with texts and fotos. A two day festival at Berlin’s HAU 1 & 2 theatres presents a selection of their collaborations and solo projects with plenty of befriended musicians and artists.