A Closer Listen
Let’s cut right to it: yes, the title refers to Werner Herzog. No, sadly, he doesn’t appear on the album. Although a Werner Herzog / Mouse On Mars collaboration would, in all likelihood, be amazing (think the Von Südenfed collab with Mark E. Smith, only more Germanic), this album is only Herzog-adjacent. In 2007, an Italian film festival contacted Andi Toma & Jan St Werner and offered them the opportunity to create a new score for any film, to be performed live. The duo picked Werner Herzog’s 1971 film Fata Morgana, which had not been a critical success but had gone on to become a favourite of students who indulged in a certain amount of recreational drug use.
Fata Morgana is an oddity even in Werner Herzog’s sprawling catalogue – it’s arguably the bridge between his documentaries and epic movie work, consisting of three parts. The first part is mostly footage shot around the Sahara desert with a narration relaying the Mayan creation myth, with music by Mozart, Leonard Cohen, and the Third Ear Band. I’ll leave you to discover the rest, should you feel so inclined. It’s difficult to sync up the music of Herzog Sessions with the film (for a start, the film is 30 minutes longer than the record), so it’s probably easier to stick to the audio without the visual or do your own edit.
Once Mouse On Mars had created and performed their new score in Italy, they discovered that the rights to screen the film had not been cleared, and Herzog had not approved the project. This scuppered any future plans they may have had for the work aside from a second performance in London in 2009. So, their soundtrack for Fata Morgana was shelved for the next 15 years. That it’s been dusted down and released is a cause for celebration, not least because it’s an MOM work that dates from a time when they weren’t producing records; it fits roughly between Tromatic Reflexxions (with Mark E. Smith) and Parastrophics (with several vocalists on board); Herzog Sessions, by contrast, is fully instrumental. As a bonus, it’s more accessible than some of their more recent conceptual works.
If you like the glitchy, playful side of Mouse On Mars from a few years back, you will find much to delight in here. The opening “oergHz” covers a lot of ground in its 15-minute duration (it takes up a third of the whole album), running through different moods from the “Windowlicker”-type ‘coo’s to an ambient guitar pattern at the end. “ozgreH”, that follows, leaps in with a splashy electro beat and what sounds like a load of sampled instruments being bent out of shape.
It’s often difficult to see how the music would work as a score – I imagine that there were ambient interludes during the live show although the only piece that fits that description here is “goerzH”. On the other hand a track like “zeHrog” really fits in, conjuring up images of twisted metal in the sand. Fata Morgana is named after a phenomenon much like a mirage but convincing enough for explorers to claim they had discovered islands and mountains as a result of experiencing it. This feeling of uncertainty is carried over to the Herzog Sessions – it’s a new Mouse On Mars album and yet at the same time, it’s an archival work. It’s a film score but you don’t need to see the film to appreciate the music. It’s a glitchy electronic piece with lots of analogue instruments. It may seem awkward and angular but it is in fact very accessible. If MOM’s recent output has had you at times bewildered, then this is probably an opportune moment to dip back in. (Jeremy Bye)
Mon Nov 18 00:01:52 GMT 2024