Only a band as creative as Mouse on Mars can release a disappointing album that's still very nearly great. Compared to the innumerable rows of drivel that constitute the "electronica" section of your neighborhood Sam Goody, Niun Niggung is a sharp realization of Kraftwerk's emotional man/machine promise. But when judged against the Mouse on Mars's finest work, namely the vinyl-only LPs Instrumentals and Glam, this is merely an entertaining and technically accomplished diversion. Though they're capable of transcendent beauty, these Germans just want to have fun for the time being.
Six full-length albums into their career, the Deutschland Duo of Jan St Werner and Andi Toma exhibit two distinct musical personalities: there's the abstract, glitch-wielding ambient side displayed on Instrumentals and St Werner's solo work as Lithops, and there's the humorous, off-kilter take on electronic pop as heard on Autoditacker and Niun Niggung. If anything, this new album takes the pop direction even further, harnessing the group's trademark electromagnetic flatulence, amplifying it, and shaping it into a strangely melodic but bizarre collage of fragmented sounds. Nowhere is this more evident than on the second track, "Yippie", which twists sampled horns and heavily processed analog synths into a frantic cyborg polka. Roll out the 55-gallon barrel of WD-40-- we'll have a barrel of fun.
And it is fun, too, but it's just not as affecting as "Download Sofist", the leadoff track that also happens to be Niun Niggung's only real slice of Mouse on Mars's "serious" side. With its striking arrangement of classical guitar, treated electronics and French horns, the too-brief "Download Sofist" soundly beats Stereolab at their own game. As great as the song is, it also points out that the album as a whole could use more of this kind of risk-taking. Mouse on Mars have now completely mastered the transatlantic bump of "Pinwheel Herman", but they've yet to hit the wall on their more experimental side.
After all, the slower and more drawn-out Mouse on Mars's tunes are, the more time you have to absorb all the astonishing sonic minutiae. For example, I first heard a handful of these songs on the Distroia EP in the Spring of '99. I was particularly taken with the a track called "Super Sonig Fadeout"; it had the sensuous feel of something off Prince's Sign O' the Times, yet the texture was completely robotic. When I finally heard Niun Niggung, I discovered that the song was actually punchy and fast, and that I was playing my Distroia 12" at the incorrect speed of 33 1/3 rpm. This embarrassing mistake (which I never discovered during six months of solid listening) gave me a chance to discover what I love most about Mouse on Mars: the gooey, dense details.
