Customer Reviews

Varcharz (Dig)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

this album is incredible. their last release, radical connector, coinsides with this release well. the hooks, and riffs only reveal themselves after many plays, and it is imperative to listen to the entire album atleast a few times. this album has no lyrics, and their drummer is not present in this album. it is pure electronic, and it is very catchy. they keep their base and go crazy with the sound.

this release was everything i expected and more.

buy this album if you want one of the best releases of 2006.

I don't know what some of these people are talking about, comparing this to "pennies in a blender"? Are you kidding me? Have some of these bedroom critics even listened to this cd? The description couldn't be more off and is a careless disservice to yet another remarkable Mouse on Mars release.

I've been listening to these guys since "Vulvaland" and listened to them evolve, grow and still retain a certain, catchy, accessable sound despite increasingly challenging releases. This is not to say Mouse on Mars have crawled up their own behinds to become the boring labcoats that another much revered and highly overrated duo has morphed into. Oh no. Mouse on Mars can challenge, can cause a racket even, but they do it with love and a with very human element. Yes, Mouse on Mars DO like music and enjoy busting out a good melody and dancable beat, which you will find in abundance on this highly engaging rollercoaster of a soundtrip. However, please don't expect the slicker, more pop oriented sounds of "Radical Connector" here (a great album in its own right). This is MOM in gritty, in yer face mode. The last track, which is actually a bunch of more random, noisier tracks is probably the most challenging part of the cd, and that's ok, because Mouse on Mars have put out another very fine collection of music and don't have to compromise their sound or direction for anyone. You're either in or out. This is what true art is all about. I sure can dig it, again and again and again.

I'm totally digging it. Don't understand the not so great reviews. Mouse on Mars excelled on this album. Love it!

Hmm, pennies in a blender? But is that necessarily bad in the hands of such extreme talents? Loads of what one dear friend calls "craft" went into the making of this artwork. My personal discovery of Mouse on Mars was after years of listening to guitar-based music, then getting into an avant-garde ensemble where I really started to think about timbre. Could a guitar ever sound like this? No. Could anyone but Mouse on Mars weld, smelt, chisel and polish this kind of metal machine music into pop? This is the beauty of Mouse on Mars. These guys achieve perfection in their field of creating shimmering neon bubbles of micro-genre invention which grow and then pop before your eyes. Their brains are connected to distant nebulae and as-yet unknown giant squids and also all the twitchy muscles you use to dance. Each album (and the stunning Instrumentals EP) has its own character more or less, so try them all.

Have you ever been stuck in a computer glitch? Most likely not. But thats how this album will make you feel. This is the most eccentric album I've ever experienced. But in a kick-you-in-your-teeth-and-solder-computer-chips-in-their-place sort of way. The first thing you will notice (apart from the non existent liner notes) is there aren't 9 tracks on here. No way. Not on this baby. When i first put this in iTunes, it couldnt find track names. I've never had that happen. Thats because there are a grand total of 21 tracks. Yes you heard that right. but here's the tricky part, the reason why this album is not in the CDDB is because there is a string of 5 second tracks (and a couple of minute and a halfers etc) that make up "song" 8 and nobody knows what to name them. Nobody. But they ARE a part of what the packaging calls "Retphase" but do you name all of them that? I don't even know. That's what makes this album so cool. Its untraditional in so many ways. Someone will eventually know what to name those strings of tracks. They'll come up with a clever naming system or something. But until that time, your going to have to go without track names on your ipod. But look beyond the strange track system on this disc and you will find some of the best tracks mouse on mars have recorded so far. It kind of has a dark, sort of Autechre feel to it. Those of you who know Autechre know that is a very good thing. But it's still MoM. Its MoM on hardcore. There's so much going on in each track that you feel mechanized, but they never go too overboard. There's still a melody to be heard. You just have to find it.
I'm giving this 5 stars, but being a rating system, my rating is really meaningless. You have to give this a listen of your own to truly appreciate how far MoM have really come.

This new incarnation of MoM's sound harkens back to First:Break and Distroia with the drill'n bass elements amped up to 11. There are no vocals or live drums on Varcharz (dodo nkisi's drumming and r'n'b inspired vocals and noibe's ethereal voice are noticeably absent) and very few of the tracks have those dreamy melodies I have grown to love from this duo. Instead Varcharz is completely and totally a disc full of knob twiddling tomfoolery and not very good knob twiddling either.

A few tracks still maintain what I've come to expect from MoM. I Go Ego Why Go We Go (alternatively titled Fishbord) is a stand out for me and possibly the only listenable track. Duul is an awful mixture of punk rock style electric guitar and lots of random, loud and abrasive electronic screeches that never quite come together although the brief break in the middle is quite pleasant. Hi Fienilin borrows that same groovalicious beat from Evoke An Object and those satisfying familar backwards beats of past releases but it gets lost in all the noise. That's what the majority of Varcharz is: noise. As if MoM was channeling recent autechre on a bad day. That's not a dig towards ae, I'm a diehard fan. However, ae seem to be the only artists successful at doing what they do. I thought Jan and Andi had side projects for the sole purpose of doing experimental stuff like this.

I have no doubt that this will sound great at an earsplitting volume on a kickass sound system in a niteclub and I have every intention of experiencing it when MoM swings my way next month. But Varcharz is a confusing release, even the playlist is confusing. This is how it goes:

1. chartnok
2. (fishbord) i go ego why go we go
3. duul (or dull, as i like to call it)
4. inocular part 1
5. inocular part 2
6. skik
7. hi feinlin
8. bertney
9. retphase part 1
10. retphase part 2
11. retphase part 3
12. retphase part 4
13. retphase part 5
14. retphase part 6
15. retphase part 7
16. retphase part 8
17. retphase part 9
18. retphase part 10
19. retphase part 11
20. retphase part 12
21. one day not today

But the CD case says there's only 9 tracks. Go figure. (Bear in mind the retphase "parts" run about 5 seconds to a minute each until part 12 is reached which runs a little over two minutes.)

If Nuin Nugging was the crowning glory of their ouevre and Radical Connector polarized their fan base, then Varcharz is going to lose them a lot of fans, new and old alike. This is their worst effort to date and I've been a fan since Iaora Tahiti. I can't express how disappointed I am. I will keep listening to Varcharz because maybe something will finally reveal itself to me. Afterall it did take me at least a dozen listens before I got into Idiology and Radical Connector. I haven't given up hope on MoM but may give up on Varcharz soon.

i can see how this album in an evolution of Mouse on Mars' experimental form of musical exploration. Yes, it has some artistic merit. But its not music. And its not enjoyable. Its noise. Headache-inducing, high-pitched, static-ridden noise. The same effect could be achieved by placing a handful of pennies in a blender, set to whip. Record that, randomly divide it up into tracks and you have Varcharz.
A huge disappointment. I delete it and regret purchasing it.
Ill take Radical Connector any day.