Being on tour is like the storyline of a moderately exciting adventure novel: one stumbles from one bizarre situation into the next and juggles a daily chapter with the help of three arms and seven lives reaching a happy end -- the successful entertainment of 300 to 3000 people by means of a gig. It's a trip in the fast lane, with junk food and very little sleep, through stage sets, cities, countries and continents. Everything is amplified to the extreme, both sound and hormones. The next destination is always more interesting than the place where one has just been. Read More...
Being on tour is like the storyline of a moderately exciting adventure novel: one stumbles from one bizarre situation into the next and juggles a daily chapter with the help of three arms and seven lives reaching a happy end—the successful entertainment of 300 to 3000 people by means of a gig. It’s a trip in the fast lane, with junk food and very little sleep, through stage sets, cities, countries and continents. Everything is amplified to the extreme, both sound and hormones. The next destination is always more interesting than the place where one has just been. And every bit of matter can become an important utensil for the always improvised miracle machine of stage action. Touring involves racing across country lanes with rundown tires and bus drivers of significantly diminished responsibility, as well as rides across deserts and schmoozing ones way across borders (so the fifteen boxes of merchandise pass through customs successfully without fees). One is high on adrenalin 24 hours a day. It’s like being cured, or perhaps, as if one has never been ill; there is no personal history, one acts out oneself, every day anew.
All this is done for the spur of a moment and the audience, for art, the party and the big bang. Even a band that’s been born out of the studio realizes fast that sound’s magic reaches its people, also, and especially, via the stage. Ideas are being burnt like fireworks with as much energy as the tiring body allows. One boils like a screaming steam engine, whose parts are no longer under control, through venues and clubs.
Live albums are really absurd since they try to capture what is unattainable. Many live albums are a bit like a holiday photo—a pale two-dimensional image of a once enchanting moment. For that reason Mouse on Mars avoided the release of their live recordings for ten years. They left the documentation of their stage shows to the bootleggers, the secret archivists and HIFI resistant butterfly collectors. Apart from a limited 7” and various quietly tolerated bootleg CD-Rs there’s never been anything released that had not been painstakingly assembled and galvanized by the band in their studio.
But now they bring you Mouse On Mars live04—the highlights of extensive touring in 2004, and thus a new alloy, melted together from ten years of stage presence. Why Mouse On Mars are among the best live acts in the world needs to be experienced directly, this cannot be understood by these recordings. Nevertheless, they explain very well that this band’s gigs are at least as exciting and unpredictable as their records, and that the music of Mouse On Mars, constantly reinventing itself, develops its magical energy especially on stage.
From about 600 hours (!!!) of live material, recorded during their various tours of the last year through the US, Japan and Europe, the best takes have been selected and lovingly glued together. Ladies and gentlemen, experience Dodo Nkishi on drums and microphone, Andi Toma on bass guitar, guitar and electronics and Jan St. Werner on keyboards, effects and digitizer on their private stage between recollection and renewal.
