Mouse On Mars

Delivering a more bubbly answer to IDM’s jagged angles, Mouse On Mars often seem to reassemble their sound from scratch with each album. Childhood friends Jan St. Werner and Andi Toma started the project in Düsseldorf, Germany in 1993, cycling through subgenres of electronic and experimental music before coalescing into the warm, tropical tones of their 1994 debut album, Vulvaland. Their approach grew increasingly more animated and askew from there, with 1999’s Niun Niggung introducing the manipulated strings and horns that feature prominently in their later work. Drummer Dodo NKishi lent his sample-ready singing voice to 2004’s brashly funky Radical Connector, which featured more live instrumentation and a collage-like hip-hop influence. All the while, the core pair have remained in-demand collaborators with others, contributing to Stereolab’s 1997 album Dots and Loops and even recording a whole record with The Fall frontman Mark E. Smith as Von Südenfed in 2007.