Andrew DuncanMouse on Mars
Dimensional People
Thrill Jockey
★★★★
Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner are normal people. They see the same things that we all see and experience the same elements most of us other humans can relate to. But it is in the way the two see the familiar and interpret it into something innovative and new is what brings out the best in Mouse on Mars. Dimensional People is that electronic innovation that provokes and challenges our senses to explore the bounds of electronic music in a fascinating perspective.
With “Dimensional People Part I-III,” the duo gives us a feeling of motion that is dizzying: sounds blur the lines of reality that come in and out of focus. They build in angles and perplexities. It’s what you may hear come out of Spacetime Continuum album lost somewhere in time. It’s probably the subtle sax samples that remind me of Double Fine Zone. Part II opens into a warehouse of productive sampling. We get jazzed-up electronic pulses and meanderings that dissipates as quick to minimalism, psychological diversions and anxiety-driven beats that dribble into ambient hues of stranger cerebral scatting.
Mouse on Mars break down Dimensional People
On this album, you feel like you get a grasp on something familiar when it is all melted into a cultural pot of technological stew.
“Foul Mouth” is glitched-out hallucinatory Hip Hop while maintaining a statement of our times. “Tear To My Eye” is island culture that preserves what feels like natural habitat in alien terrain. It’s both beautiful and menacing all in the same tone.
Like “Dimensional People,” the three-part “Parliament of the Aliens Parts I-III” dig deep into the duo’s sub-conscious and expels music that is as fascinating as it is frightening. A soundtrack of free-form spontaneous order that feels like random selection taps more on emotion than motive. Part II is their Paradiso, dancing about with electronic glitches that feel organic. The song glistens with light and sound reflecting off of other sounds. “Part III” is a quick thought process to tie up the loose ends of this trilogy.
Mouse on Mars discuss “Foul Mouth”
Having over 20 musical guests collaborate on this album is what builds a deeper level of perspective than the two simply churning out weirdness. Each player from Zach Condon of Beirut to Swamp Dogg and loads of talent in between builds a unique perspective into the foundation of this work. They serve as multi-faceted characters through spacial composition giving complete openness as to who or what they want to portray on this album. With this philosophy the album—although brilliant in concept—could have been an absolute disaster. Yet, it stands out as quite the opposite.
I feel like Dimensional People lies somewhere between Niun Niggung and Radical Connector, but on a three-dimensional spectrum that has all of its barriers stripped away and new lines drawn.
I cannot conclude this is the best album of their career. That takes time to develop a viewpoint like that and an album of this scope takes more time to digest. What I can say is that this is easily an essential masterpiece in the contingent of electronic culture with an album that challenges the senses and purports a command performance of brilliant minds coming together.