Lithops

Lithops is the solo guise of Jan St Werner, known as half of popular Köln/Düsseldorf-based duo Mouse on Mars. Also a member of abstract ambient outfit Microstoria, Werner tends toward middle ground with his Lithops material, fusing the smooth digital weirdness of Microstoria with the smudgy, off-kilter beats and warm, imperfect textures of Mouse on Mars releases such as Instrumentals and Glam. Lithops tracks rub the outer edges of inferential electronics, and often sound as though they began their lives as studio accidents, all fumbly, peripatetic rhythms emerging from a haze of muffled bass and overdriving synth textures. Although Werner's first Lithops tracks trace only to 1995, a flood of material quickly appeared, beginning with the two-track "Wackler/Khan" 12-inch, issued by tiny Köln-based imprint Eat Raw, and shifting into high gear with a pair of full-lengths released in 1998. Werner and MoM partner Andi Toma's Sonig label issued the first of those -- the drab, gauzy Uni Umit -- in early 1998, while the Eat Raw's LP Didot followed only months later. Although it didn't receive quite the initial distribution push of Sonig's first release -- MoM's excellent Instrumentals LP, reissued stateside by Thrill Jockey -- Uni Umit was equally as splendid, wrapping thick, organic textures around sparse rhythms, bizarre electronics, and thick, strapping, resonant bass. (The album got a stateside CD reissue in 1998, via Jim O'Rourke's Moikai label.) Didot, for its part, was slightly better-produced and rhythmically further flung than its predecessor. An additional 1998 release came in the form of the "Turbino" 7-inch, released by the otherwise unrelated Static Caravan label. Another single "Sequenced Twinset" appeared in 1999, and four years later, Lithops returned with third album Scrypt, released through Thrill Jockey. 2006 brought two new full lengths: Queries which was again released on Sonig a compilation of rare and unreleased material and Mound Magnet an offer of new shimmering dsp jewels released on stateside's Thrill Jockey label. Mound Magnet Part 2 will be out on sonig in May 2008, limited edition vinyl 300 copies only. The cd version will be released on US label killer pimp

"Jan St. Werner has been in the public eye in the last year or so for Von Südenfed, the collaboration he and his Mouse on Mars partner Andi Toma have with the Fall's Mark E. Smith. But St. Werner keeps busy and often has several projects going on simultaneously. Musically, the man never stays still; even when he's issuing a sequel, it still feels like the first time. Case in point is his new solo album under his Lithops guise. Though it shares the title Mound Magnet with its predecessor, (this is Part 2, subtitled Elevations Above Sea Level), the feel on the tracks I've heard is looser, sillier, comparatively melodic, and more focused on the driving 4/4. The epic "Rosa in a Light Speed Vessel" has a propulsive beat at its core and everything but the kitchen sink is swirling around it in a cyclone of sound-- stomping guitar chords, sea-sick synth moans, what might be a gradually pitch-shifted sample of a bi-plane's engine. It's a track that makes you feel like you're one step behind it for its entire duration, not quite able to figure out what's going on one moment as it has already moved on to the next."
Mark Richardson, Pitchforkmedia

the new Lithops album "Ye Viols!" will be released on thrill jockey in january 09

Lithops

reviews

Jan St. Werner has been in the public eye in the last year or so for Von Südenfed, the collaboration he and his Mouse on Mars partner Andi Toma have with the Fall's Mark E. Smith. But St. Werner keeps busy and often has several projects going on simultaneously. Musically, the man never stays still; even when he's issuing a sequel, it still feels like the first time. Case in point is his new solo album under his Lithops guise. Though it shares the title Mound Magnet with its predecessor, (this is Part 2, subtitled Elevations Above Sea Level), the feel on the tracks I've heard is looser, sillier, comparatively melodic, and more focused on the driving 4/4. The epic "Rosa in a Light Speed Vessel" has a propulsive beat at its core and everything but the kitchen sink is swirling around it in a cyclone of sound-- stomping guitar chords, sea-sick synth moans, what might be a gradually pitch-shifted sample of a bi-plane's engine. It's a track that makes you feel like you're one step behind it for its entire duration, not quite able to figure out what's going on one moment as it has already moved on to the next. - Mark Richardson, Pitchforkmedia

Jan St. Werner is a well-heeled master of the unconventional groove. As one half of Mouse on Mars (and one third of Von Südenfed), he's been responsible for some of the more gloriously deranged takes on dance music to come down the pike in recent years. Of course, his prodigious musical activities also lean toward the avant-garde and experimental -- he was recently the artistic director at the Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music (Steim) in the Netherlands. But even at its most abstract, his music always has at least one foot on the dance floor. The traces of dub, funk, and techno may be obscured, but their signature propulsive rhythms are rarely absent. The tracks on St. Werner's fourth album as Lithops are no exception: they're eccentric, loose-limbed constructions, heavy on contorted rhythms, off-kilter beats, and writhing swirls of noise. Ostensibly a sequel to 2006's Mound Magnet (which remains a horrible title), Pt. 2 is as jam-packed with ideas as its uneven predecessor, but it's a friendlier and considerably funkier creature. "A Generation Without Context," with its kettledrum bass line and anxious, stumbling beats, may not impel you to jump up and shake what God gave you -- then again, maybe you need to re-examine what God gave you. - Susanna Bolle, The Boston Phoenix

Lithops is actually Jan St. Werner who is one half of the ever glitchy Mouse on Mars and one third of the Mark E. Smith led Vod Sudenfed. On his own as Lithops, Werner, doesn't stray to far from the Mouse on Mars blueprint of glitchy, plonky techno except to make things a bit harder, faster, and erm stronger. Ok, Daft Punk/Kanye references aside, Elevations Above Sea Level is a brash and harsh electronic experiment which sees Lithops devleoping songs by what would seem like bashing to Roland 808's together and then crushing a few Korgs for good measure. It's Aphex Twin in a good mood if he were run through the German techno processing plant. The songs on Elevations Above Sea Level are the sort of things that will test the limits of your speakers and your neighbors patience and that's why this is a great release. This is an album of powerful machines attacking lines of beats and atonal keyboard stabs to attempt to make something organic out of them. The results aren't always what you would call catchy, but there are glimpses of melody scattered in between the computerized knife fights. "Rosa In A Light Speed Vessel," for example, is actually quite a catchy little minimal techno stormer and almost seems like a Von Sudenfed outtake. It's bouncy bass line keeps the song moving while guitars and keyboards sound like they're being pulled apart by T-1000's. It's violently happily and melodically pleasing stuff that's quite danceable. Most of the other tunes on Elevations Above Sea Level however, sound like the internet superhighway clogged with 1,000,000,000 streaming accidents and a lot of frustration. These are the sorts of things that would probably give most people migraines and cause them to go insane. It's not pleasant stuff, but harsh, cold, and brutal machinations of the apocalypse despite such pleasing titles as, "Caribbean Circuitry." If you ever wanted to know what computers said to each other, Elevations Above Sea Level is what their conversations sound like. Lithops has stumbled upon something here and if can only translate what it all means, he stands to rake in a fortune. Intriguing, loud, illogical, and slightly annoying Lithops' Elevations Above Sea Level is the sound of a dark future coming to light. - Paul Popp, First Coast News

Besides this Lithops solo project, Jan St. Werner spends time in Mouse on Mars, Microstoria, and Von Südenfed in addition to few other even more obscure monikers. While the aforementioned projects are "bands," perhaps in an unconventional sense, Lithops is his chance to act completely on his own and while traces of those other projects are evident, this is a wonderfully unmanageable beast all on its own. While Microstoria and Mouse on Mars stayed closer to "conventional" electronic music, the more recent Von Südenfed project has shown a greater tendency for experimentation, but keeping within a still-danceable framework, even despite Mark E. Smith's trademark vocals on that project. With Lithops, however, St. Warner has gone balls out in experimentation: while he still isn't afraid to build a track around a crunchy electro beat, it is sonically much more all over the place. "Roctrum" and "Concretemess and Absaction" both have a steady recognizable beat behind them, but the other pieces of the tracks are all over the place, like a malfunctioning sampler spitting out its 16 bit death rattles throughout. St. Warner does make some other bows to conventionality, mostly old school electro in the form of "Noo Non M Oon" and "Bleasure Pastique," the latter meshes the analog beats with subtle melodies and lo-fi Game Boy synth tones in a way that one could probably breakdance to it if they were so inclined (but they'd probably look like an ass doing so). The lo-fi electronic elements come up on the brief, bitcrushed passage of "Every Detail's Matter" and the ancient Atari engine revs of "Baliation" that mix quite well with the violent noise blasts and IDM synth elements. Perhaps the most interesting are the tracks that come flying completely out of left field in terms of color and tone. The Allophons remix of "Mound Magnet Pt. 1" is stripped down to be 1940s era vocal samples layered with guitar loops that make for a much more controlled and mellow work than most of the preceding tracks. Both of the "Serendippo" tracks (4 and 5) diverge the most, with the former resembling a Middle Eastern melodic structure slapped on top of a waltz rhythm that somehow works, and the latter is a completely different work of disembodied voices swirling from another dimension over digital anvil percussion clanks and found sound collage. In a genre that has been so heavily mined for experimentation due to the ability to utilize and exploit any and all technological innovations, Lithops' has created something that, while not groundbreakingly new, takes a new and wildly flailing approach to the genre and style that is all over the map in terms of style and structure, but obviously being directed by the more than able hands of a true artist. Don't expect to dance to it down at the club, but listen intently and be rewarded. - Creaig Dunton, Brainwashed

Lithops

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