Mouse on Mars - AAI

[dr lopez]

they did a live stream on friday or something that was pretty boring. i think they might be old now. 

[kieselguhr kid]

apart from the MoM classics (~up to radical connector) i actually much prefer jan st. werner's solo stuff these days.

he just did these audio-visual collabs with casey reas recently which are quite up my alley

and 2003's SCRYPT is a fuckin glitch noise masterpiece

 

[toaoaoad]

Still waiting patiently for this one to come out. Went to check today because I remembered it was sometime in February (the 26th) and noticed there's another preview track. Check it out if you haven't ... mixed feelings over here 
https://mouseonmarstj.bandcamp.com/track/artificial-authentic

[Hugh Mughnus]

58 minutes ago, toaoaoad said:

Still waiting patiently for this one to come out. Went to check today because I remembered it was sometime in February (the 26th) and noticed there's another preview track. Check it out if you haven't ... mixed feelings over here 
https://mouseonmarstj.bandcamp.com/track/artificial-authentic

I like it. Has a lot of old school MoM sounds/vibe to it imo. 

 

[Limo]

Cautiously optimistic 

[kieselguhr kid]

another new track

 

Edited February 9, 2021 by kieselguhr kid

[Limo]

A bit bland, but still: cautiously optimistic.

[Boxus]

I really like Artificial Authentic. It reminds me of the best parts of Parastrophics.

[BobDobalina]

I love MoM probably as much as the next poster but you can't un-jump that yeeyee ass shark that was the "21 phone-ins" or w/e

Oddly enough I listened to WOW in my car a few weeks ago and thought to myself that it was quite lowkey slepton good

[Extralife]

I’m listening to Autoditacker again. It still stands tall with the greatest recorded albums of any genre in the 90s.

[dr lopez]

i would enthusiastically agree

[Extralife]

Finally listened to the preview tracks - couldn't wait.  Sounds very promising to me.  I've actually been binging on MoM lately - so many great releases.  I forgot how much I liked the tunes on that EP collection, Rost Pocks too.

[Extralife]

CD just arrived in the mail!

[Hugh Mughnus]

25 minutes ago, Extralife said:

CD just arrived in the mail!

Wait what??? Isn’t it not out for like another month? 
 

oh... two more weeks. Crud I want it now

Curious to hear your thoughts after you’ve heard it!

Edited February 14, 2021 by Hugh Mughnus

[Extralife]

A perfect tune.

@Hugh Mughnus I’ll let you know after I finish Audoditacker for the millionth time.

[ARPA]

AAI ... first listen, I could not get through, sorry ... I will try again after I binged their classic 94-99 discography.

The '90s were golden years for Mouse On Mars, brilliant albums still sounding fresh now. 
I remember seeing the live stuff on mtv and being blown away, damn time flies.

 

Sad many of those classics are not on Bandcamp

[ARPA]

[Extralife]

9 hours ago, ARPA said:

AAI ... first listen, I could not get through, sorry ... I will try again after I binged their classic 94-99 discography.

The '90s were golden years for Mouse On Mars, brilliant albums still sounding fresh now. 
I remember seeing the live stuff on mtv and being blown away, damn time flies.

 

Sad many of those classics are not on Bandcamp

See this is my issue (and i think many of yours) with listening to modern MoM. Literally every album (and almost every ep and one off track) they put out in the 90s was bouncy, fun, cerebral...and most of all very human sounding.  Their output during this period was just about peerless imo - especially Iahora, Autoditacker, and Instrumentals - which I feel are timeless classics.

It is almost not fair to compare their more recent works to the 90s era.  But yesterday I listened to Autoditacker then followed up with AAI, which I probably shouldn't have done.  

That being said, AAI was a very engaging listen and I plan on listening again more often.  I guess the AI/generative aspect of this is the point of this set -- I can see it being very appealing to fans of that generative Conditional recs type sound.  Their signature voice is definitely there, and there are some really great tracks, interspersed with some spoken word and more experimental interludes.  A lot of it reminds me of some of the more rhythmic stuff Vladislav Delay was putting out when he did that ep set a few years back.  

Curious to see what everyone else thinks about this. 

[Extralife]

Btw, has anyone heard the archival tracks from the 21 Again box? There are several great tunes on there that should have been released back in the 90s. I mean, listen to this:

 

[Rarebit Nutter]

On 2/14/2021 at 6:07 PM, Extralife said:

See this is my issue (and i think many of yours) with listening to modern MoM. Literally every album (and almost every ep and one off track) they put out in the 90s was bouncy, fun, cerebral...and most of all very human sounding.  Their output during this period was just about peerless imo - especially Iahora, Autoditacker, and Instrumentals - which I feel are timeless classics.

until recently I was only really familar with their 90s discography, up to around Idiology. And I'd happily include Autoditaker as one of the best electronic albums of the 90s. But then seeing the annoucement for this new release, I thought it was high time I caught up with their later output and tbh everything I've heard is just as good. Dimensional People is awesome; has the classic MoM sound and the vocal collaborations fit perfectly. From a couple of listens, WOW sounded great as well - and clearly influenced by contemporary electronic music from that time.

Not so sure about AAI so far...it feels a bit less free-flowing and organic than a their normal style. But that could be the whole point of the concept of the album. Need more time to digest though...

Whatever you think about their later output, they've never stood still and always stayed true to their own approach

[toaoaoad]

6 hours ago, Extralife said:

Btw, has anyone heard the archival tracks from the 21 Again box? There are several great tunes on there that should have been released back in the 90s. I mean, listen to this:

 

Yeah, it's some of the only 21 Again material I kept around lol. The collab with the Bionaut is a really beautiful track. Can't find it on youtube.

 

[kuniklo]

I'm liking this better than I've liked a MOM album in a long time. Not sure if I'll want to come back to it but I don't hate it.

[ARPA]

I made up my mind I don't like the new one, I just really only like their 90s stuff it seems, I always try though

On 2/17/2021 at 5:33 PM, Extralife said:

Btw, has anyone heard the archival tracks from the 21 Again box? There are several great tunes on there that should have been released back in the 90s. I mean, listen to this:

 

Great stuff this, oh yes from the 90s  

[Rarebit Nutter]

I'm finding AAI patchy to be honest. There's a couple of great tracks on there: Artificial Authentic, Latent Space, some of the others in the middle. But the noisy interludes don't really do that much for me, and in the whole last third of the album there's only really one proper track.

And then the machine monologues are kind of interesting in their own right but they don't massively add to the music. I feel they might've been better kept separate.

Anyway...I don't like to knock something too much that's only just come out. Maybe some of it is just going over my head little

[sidewinder]

19 hours ago, kuniklo said:

I'm liking this better than I've liked a MOM album in a long time.

Just finished my first listen and this is how I feel. I'll have to revisit Parastrophics because I liked that one, but AAI is certainly the best one since. I might say I liked this better than Radical Connector and Varcharz, but perhaps too early to make that claim.