Molocular Meditation is the new record from Jan St. Werner, who is likely best-known as half of the electronic duo Mouse on Mars. The record offers the titular 19-minute track on side A featuring the voice of the late Mark E. Smith, plus two more shorter pieces on side two where the leader of The Fall speaks, those cuts surrounding a longer cut based on the Renaissance writings of Giordano Bruno. Folks into Werner’s Fiepblatter Catalogue should devour this set without a hiccup, but Smith’s presence will surely broaden the record’s audience. Appropriately, the contents are as appealingly challenging as the rest of Werner’s solo work. It’s out February 21 through Editions Mego.
The first thing to know about this record is that it is not a posthumously assembled cash-in. Famed as the sui generis sole constant member of post-punk cornerstone The Fall, Mark E. Smith died on January 24, 2018, but the electroacoustic composition on side one premiered as a multi-channel installation at Cornerhouse, Manchester in 2014.
This is a re-edited stereo version of the original Molocular Meditation, and in simultaneously showcasing Smith’s vocal observations and general disdain for what the label tags as the “apolitical British upper class,” Werner does a solid job of magnifying his collaborator’s presence while deepening the dimension of the piece overall through what’s succinctly described as experimental electronics.
Werner is nothing if not intensely attentive to the sounds at his disposal. It’s worthy of note that the vinyl of Molocular Meditation was cut with a diamond needle so that the LP possesses as much sonic range as the digital. This may read as weird to folks to have just accepted the argument that digital is inherently inferior to analogue, but in a truth to materials sense, it’s often the case (at least in my experience) that digital recordings often sound best played back digitally (a la the film maxim that images shot on celluloid look best projected on celluloid).
But it’s best to not let too many worms out of this particular can, as this is an attempt to compose a relatively concise review of Jan St. Werner’s Molocular Meditation. Suffice it to say that Werner and Editions Mego care about the strongest audio representation possible for this recording, and for that they should be lauded.
Now, for Werner newbies thinking digital = slick, that’s not the thing here, as after a few seconds, the title piece sounds as if the ground wire has somehow gotten loose on your turntable. Upon Smith’s emergence in the mix, it slowly becomes palpable that he and Werner were in the same room for the piece’s foundation; indeed, vocal and guitar feedback was recorded by the pair at Blueprint Studios in Manchester, the electronics later by Werner in Berlin.
It should be mentioned that Smith doesn’t sing on this record, he speaks, which isn’t far from his mode of operation in The Fall, though his execution largely registers as unique here. He’s unsurprisingly on the surly end of the spectrum, though he never succumbs to dyspeptic ranting. There’s just too much art in Smith’s (and Werner’s) attack.
There are also a few spots that are effectively humorous. An early moment that seems like a William S. Burroughs impression, a spot where Smith adopts a deep growl for a curse-peppered complaint (and a brief mention of moving “down-uptown” that triggered a recollection of I Am Kurious Oranj, always a nice thing). There are also a few passages where Smith seems to be aping the cadence of Artificial Intelligence, though if this was his intention, it’s ambiguous, which only adds to the appeal.
But as “Molocular Meditation” progresses, Werner’s guiding hand is asserted, reinforcing that it is his name on the record’s cover. Some of his tactics harken back to the atmospheres of early electronic music, bringing to mind slowly rising sine waves in a few spots, but at other times he’s cultivating environments that are at the forefront of the genre’s experimentation.
“Molocular Meditation” ends with Smith conversing in a relaxed tone. This highlights the familiarity and rapport between the record’s principals and combines well with the record’s likeable but minor concluding track “VS Cancelled,” which features Smith reading an email from Domino Records detailing the label’s termination of their relationship with the Mouse on Mars-Smith collaboration Von Sudenfed (their debut Tromatic Reflexxions dates from 2006).
Side two’s opener “Back to Animals” is the stronger of the other cuts featuring Smith. I make the distinction because Smith is absent on the side’s long middle track “On the Infinite of Universe and Worlds.” There are words, arriving fairly late in the 12-minute piece, but they are spoken (yelled, more accurately) by Guiseppe Maria Zevola.
That this piece, essentially the bedrock for an electronic opera, is the best of the selections on side two might seem like an undercutting of Molocular Meditation’s Werner-Smith connection overall, but it only reinforces that this isn’t some kind of brazen money grab or uninspired tribute. Instead, it sheds light on the creativity and interactions between Smith and Werner without overzealous fanfare.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
