As Mouse On Mars, Jan St. Werner has been making forward-thinking, reality-altering electronic music with Andi Toma for well over three decades; he's been pursuing similar aims in Microstoria with Oval's Markus Popp for nearly as long. But St. Werner has also made solo records, sometimes using the alias Lithops, and his 2023 release Space Synthesis was a solo joint under his own name. That's the case with his upcoming EP too, sort of.
Squares Will Fall will be released in November under the Jan St. Werner banner, but it's a highly collaborative affair. It has a long backstory too, as the Bandcamp bio explains:
“Squares Will Fall” began in 2012 as an electronic composition lasting exactly 30 minutes, created to mark the 30th birthday of a friend. Over time, the piece continued to evolve, eventually forming the foundation for an improvisation by Justin Vernon of Bon Iver and Jan St. Werner during Mouse on Mars’s Dimensional People sessions at Vernon’s studio in Wisconsin. In 2021, “Squares Will Fall” assumed a new form as a multidirectional loudspeaker choreography created for the Ural Industrial Biennial. Three independent layers of the composition were transmitted through loudspeakers suspended via long ropes from the circus ceiling and were continuously repositioned by the performers, becoming active participants in the mixing process. The audience was free to wander through the venue, experiencing shifting perspectives of the work and creating their own recordings as personal documents of a composition that existed differently for every listener.
"Squares Will Fall" is the EP's A-side. Not only does it feature Vernon on lead vocals, its cast of contributors includes prior St. Werner collaborator Kid Millions on drums, Beirut's Zach Condon on trumpet, and the National/Beirut's Ben Lanz on trombone. Mouse On Mars' Toma helped with the mix. The end result reminds me of the work Bon Iver were doing on 2019's i,i, but just a little bit further out there.
There are two B-sides, "Swamp Brains" and "Flötotto." St. Werner's only collaborator on "Swamp Brains" is vocalist Rosanne Rubino. "Flötotto" features another all-star team, among them Sufjan Stevens on drum machine, Kid Millions on drums, and Lanz on trombone and bass.
Before the EP's release, Thrill Jockey is sharing an abridged edit of "Squares Will Fall" on Bandcamp. Check it out below.
TRACKLIST:
01 "Squares Will Fall"
02 "Swamp Brains"
03 "Flötotto"
Squares Will Fall is out 11/13 on Thrill Jockey.
