21 Again: Collaborations

While many venerable acts celebrate their careers with fawning homages or self-serious retrospectives, the fact that Mouse on Mars waited until their 21st "birthday" instead of the two-decade mark hints at 21 Again's mischief. This willingness to play with and challenge expectations and traditions, even as they created a legacy, is one of Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner's most enduring and endearing traits. A kind of musical birthday party with guests including their closest friends and collaborators as well as admirers, 21 Again shares the celebratory, experimental spirit of Mouse on Mars' best work (and also the two-day festival they curated as part of this anniversary). In terms of the duo's most recent output, the wide-ranging collection's tone falls somewhere in between Parastrophics' cerebral hijinks and WOW's free-for-alls, but it touches on almost every era of St. Werner and Toma's work in some fashion. "Shoe Fly," a collaboration with Tortoise, lives up to expectations: it's elegant and a little hyperactive, with prickly guitars giving way to a duel between the drums and synths. Modeselektor and Mr. Maloke help the duo indulge its most playful side on "Purple Fog," while Laetitia Sadier contributes a horrifying yet philosophical Marxist parable, "My Toe Is on Fire," that would have fit perfectly on her album Something Shines. Helado Negro, Junior Boys, and Eric D. Clark bring out the pair's smooth pop side, while the collaborations with Atom TM, Machinedrum, and Candie Hank emphasize the parts of Mouse on Mars' music that sound like they were made with toy instruments. Given 21 Again's sheer size and number of contributors, it isn't always the most cohesive collection, but it's a very Mouse on Mars way of looking back -- and forward -- while having a lot of fun. ~ Heather Phares