Hydrodynamics lab experiments from France's famed École Polytechnique provide cool eye candy for Mouse on Mars' new music video "They Know Your Name." The track is from new record Parastrophics, the latest brainy synthetic bounce from a genre-defiant duo that has combined krautrock, dub, ambient, funk, pop, industrial and musique concrete into various musical hybrids over the years.
Mouse on Mars, composed of smart German soundscapers Jan St. Werner and Andi Toma, released Parastrophics – their first full-length in six years – earlier this year on Monkeytown Records. It's also been that long since they took Mouse on Mars for a spin around Earth, but that streak ends in October when a North American tour commences.
If you're looking to school noobs who think warped dance tracks these days are mostly born straight outta Skrillex, you probably couldn't find a better place to start than a group that's been busy defying genres ever since its inventive 1994 debut Vulvaland.
The "They Know Your Name" video (above), released Monday, is a great educational tool for that purpose, and not just because its hypnotic multicell experiments were conducted by Mouse on Mars' friend Charles Baroud and his lab partner Caroline Frot. The song's elastic digifunk, like the rest of Parastrophics, can move crowds as capably as it can tickle geek lobes. "They Know Your Name" is out now as a limited 7-inch and download, but clubbier sonics arrive Nov. 2 when Mouse on Mars releases danceable mini-album Wow.
That effort – like Parastrophics and Mouse on Mars' 2011 orchestral one-off concert "Paeanumnion" – employs sound effects from St. Werner and Toma's iPhone app Wretchup, which is slated to land on iTunes in November. The app's arrival will crown a productive year for two of electronic music's reigning iconoclasts.
