Collaborations surely help keep things interesting in music today, especially such interesting match ups as these. It seemed a strange notion to me at first; trigger happy glitch maestros Mouse on Mars with Mark E. Smith of all people. Listening to Tromatic Reflexxions, it’s unsurprising how well it works. In a strange way, it’s not really so far removed from the music of The Fall; not just because Smith’s leery vocals are most in focus, but the manner of the beats are similar to the shambolic post-punk that they pioneered. Although there’s more stopping and starting and cutting and pasting here than on much of The Fall’s work, it’s often just as rollicking and ramshackle. Considering the often clinical nature of electronic music, it’s interesting the way this works out.
Like any Mouse on Mars record, this traverses a lot of different paces and takes on myriad different electronica genres. Thankfully, for the most part, it tends more towards direct beats; I’ve always enjoyed MOM’s more conventional moments. Considering Smith’s voice and the electricity of MOM’s sound, the album isn’t as grating as you might suspect (that’s not including ‘Chicken Yiamas’ but that just sounds ridiculous), in fact, all I want to do is nod my head or dance if I knew how to move my body to these sorts of rhythms.
Smith’s vocals aren’t necessarily always at the forefront throughout Tromatic Reflexxions. They blur against and often mesh with the electronics, like on ‘Family Fued’, at times the level of vocals are much less than the beats and pastiche of electronic forms. He rambles, as usual. It’s often hard to make out just what he’s saying but I guess it always has been, it’s largely the delivery. Still, his lyrics are as sardonic as ever when you listen. It’s hard to imagine this pumping out of club speakers but I’m sure it wouldn’t sound so strange.
It trails off near the end, the second to last track sees Smith asking someone called Jbak, “When will it be over?” I’m not sure what that means but the following and final track is the slowest on the record and a perfect wind down to an odd but engaging paring.
Richard MacFarlane
