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Avg: 3.5 (64 ratings)
- Date Released: September 12, 2006
- Genre: Electronic
- Style: Dance
- Label: Ipecac Recordings / The Orchard
German electronic experimenters unfurl a dazzling encyclopedia of sound palettes.
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We Say...
It's brain-stretching time for all you lateral thinkers: Mouse on Mars, Andi Toma (from Cologne) and Jan St. Werner (from Dusseldorf), have been pursuing an idiosyncratic synthesis of Krautrock and post-Darmstadt experimentalism since they teamed up in 1983, from their debut album Vulvaland to the Live04 in-concert set. Now Varcharz throws down a fresh set of challenges. The tracks barely deign to hint at anything resembling pop — the high-stepping syncopations and snippy cross-cutting of "Bertney" come closest — as the duo unfurl a dazzling encyclopedia of sound palettes and aural techniques. "Duul," presumably a nod to Munich’s seminal Amon Duul, is like being trapped in a roomful of loud, clattering machinery, while the blizzard of rhythmic and sonic effects in "Inocular" is so dense that it creates a kind of audio white-out. "Skik" unexpectedly unlocks a pristine world of whimsical, sparkling electronica, while "One Day, Not Today" teases the ear with sensuous wisps of sound before succumbing to a rising tide of chaos. It's demanding, but fascinating.
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They Say...
Just in case anyone thought Mouse on Mars got too poppy and danceable on Radical Connector, its follow-up, Varcharz, is nearly its polar opposite: jagged, fractured, splintered, and downright violent-sounding, it's easily the most extreme music the duo has made, and is right in line with the rest of Ipecac's output. The album's squelchy, stuttering beats have ties to Mouse on Mars' noisiest, most abstract earlier work, such as Niun Niggung's "Distroia," but Varcharz is hardly a regression or a rehash. If anything, the way Jan St. Werner and Andi Toma repeat the tracks' simple themes and tweak them until they're just about to break into a million pixels makes the album among their most experimental work. This theme carries to song titles like "Chartnok" and "Retphase," similarly chopped-up bits and pieces of almost-recognizable words and self-explanatory, onomatopoetic syllables. "Bertney" is a particularly good example of Varcharz's modus operandi: beginning with a twinkling, mischievous melody that could've been borrowed from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite, it's processed and disfigured until it's completely overridden by brutal hissing, scraping, and thumping. Even the most accessible tracks have a harsh edge; "Igoegowhygowego" rides an almost stupidly simple, insistent bassline borrowed from booty funk, which is then scribbled over with grating synths. Varcharz goes deep into the blackened heart of noise with "Duul," a relentless, ice-burned track that features the snarling, smoking remains of what may have once been a guitar over a seriously malfunctioning beat, and closes with "One Day Not Today," a 13-part onslaught of glitchy heaviness that explodes like digital shrapnel and ends with tribal drums. Yet, even at its most deconstructed, Varcharz's chaos is actually quite orderly; underneath it all, its splatters and streaks of sound are nearly as organized as Radical Connector's more song-based material was. Interestingly, both albums were recorded at the same time, and they work well together as the extreme yin and yang of Mouse on Mars' aesthetic. Varcharz shows that the duo is just as adamant about -- and adept at -- exploring the wilder fringes of their sound as they are honing it into forward-thinking pop.
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| 01. |  |
Chartnok |
6:01 |
|
| 02. | |
I Go Ego Why Go We Go |
5:01 |
|
| 03. | |
Duul |
6:33 |
|
| 04. | |
Inocular |
5:33 |
|
| 05. | |
Skik |
5:43 |
|
| 06. | |
Hi Fienilin |
6:51 |
|
| 07. | |
Bertney |
5:21 |
|
| 08. | |
Retphase |
6:07 |
|
| 09. | |
One Day, Not Today |
5:08 |
|
09 Total Tracks, 52:18 Total Length
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Credits
- Andi Toma - Producer // Jan St. Werner - Producer
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