Lichter by Mouse on Mars
Lichter is the first piece in a new series of electroacoustic dub compositions by Mouse on Mars. It is a massive, lurching, up-tempo percussive epic – a long-haul runaway train that keeps switching tracks without ever losing sight of its destination. Like much of Mouse on Mars’ output, Lichter deftly traverses a varied sonic landscape, encompassing elements of jazz, dub, krautrock juke and psychedelia.
Lichter incorporates trigger robots built by Sonic Robots’ Moritz Simon Geist and features Andi Toma & Jan St. Werner’s long time collaborator Dodo NKishi on percussion. The basic layers were produced with a feedback software called smrph, and were edited, arranged and used as a foundation for various live and studio improvisations. The 13min track, Lichter, is a concentration of these various layers. Lichter is also a highly visual piece, and performed live it employs a bespoke network of light-bulbs triggered by data derived from the sounds and pulses of the composition.
Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner have been recording and playing live as Mouse on Mars since 1993, and have released over a dozen albums. In 2014 the duo celebrated their 21st birthday with a curated festival at Berlin’s HAU theatres, and an accompanying compilation which showcased the band’s numerous collaborations.
Mouse on Mars, the Berlin-based duo of Jan St. Werner and Andi Toma with regular collaborator Dodo NKishi, approach electronic music with an inexhaustible curiosity and unparalleled ingenuity. Operating in their unique orbit within dance music’s nebulous echosystem, the duo’s hyper-detailed productions are inventive, groundbreaking but always possessing a signature joyful experimentation.