Mouse On Mars - 'Wipe That Sound'

It’s hard to think of a song that wouldn’t be enlivened by the presence of Mark E Smith. Perhaps he should have been asked to appear on Band Aid 20. He’d have pepped up that moribund tune, and certainly the video would have been more entertaining. (Not that I can see what all the fuss is about, mind. A bad version of a bad song is released, and no one has to buy it.)

So here comes MES collaborating with German electronicists Mouse on Mars, whose offerings I have always found rather cold. The results are, of course, a triumph, recalling Smith’s earlier and seminal collaboration with Coldcut back when Fall fans didn’t like dance music. Mark E witters on about lord know what to great effect while the keyboards do their thing. There are two versions here, one a thumping, squelching behemoth and the other, which I prefer, a lighter, dancier take. Both are tons better than anything on the latest, crushingly disappointing collection of unfinished odds and ends from the Fall, Interim. The MES numbers come on a four track 12” from Sonig records of Germany, and as was always going to be the case, the other two, one an instrumental, the other with some unnecessary rapper, sound lame by comparison. He hasn’t lost that mordant magic. Now let’s have another proper Fall LP, soon.