Lithops

Lithops may be the single guise of Jan St. Werner, recognized to most as fifty percent of well-known Köln/Düsseldorf-based duo Mouse on Mars. Also an associate of abstract ambient clothing Microstoria, St. Werner is inclined toward middle surface along with his Lithops materials, fusing the even digital weirdness of Microstoria using the smudgy, off-kilter beats and warm, imperfect textures of Mouse on Mars produces such as for example Instrumentals and Glam. Lithops monitors rub the external sides of inferential consumer electronics, and often audio as if they started their lives as content little studio mishaps, all fumbly, peripatetic rhythms rising from a haze of muffled bass and overdriving synth textures. Although St. Werner’s initial Lithops tracks track and then 1995, a overflow of materials quickly appeared, you start with the two-track “Wackler”/”Khan” 12″, released by small Köln-based imprint Eat Fresh, and moving into high equipment with a set of full-lengths released in 1998. St. Werner and Mother partner Andi Toma’s vinyl-only Sonig label released the to begin those — the drab, gauzy Uni Umit — in early 1998, as the Eat Uncooked LP Didot adopted only months later on. Though it didn’t receive quite the original distribution press of Sonig’s 1st launch — MoM’s superb Instrumentals LP, reissued stateside by Thrill Jockey — Uni Umit was just as marvelous, wrapping heavy, organic textures around sparse rhythms, bizarre consumer electronics, and heavy, strapping, resonant bass. (The recording got a stateside Compact disc reissue in 1998, via Jim O’Rourke’s Moikai label.) Didot, because of its component, was somewhat better created and rhythmically additional flung than its forerunner, but both fulfill to a far more or much less equal degree. Yet another 1998 release emerged by means of the “Turbino” 7″, released with the in any other case unrelated Static Caravan label. Another one, “Sequenced Twinset,” made an appearance in 1999, and four years afterwards, Lithops came back with third record, Scrypt, released through Thrill Jockey. Pursuing in 2006 had been the compilation Concerns aswell as the to begin some new materials under the name Mound Magnet. Component two, Mound Magnet, Pt. 2: Elevations Above Ocean Level, made an appearance in 2008. Ye Viols!, which collected parts from gallery set up soundtracks, found its way to early 2009.