For about 10 years, Mice Parade have been dipping their toes in the waters of experimental indie-electronic music, always coming out with something new and fresh, or this time, with the self-titled Mice Parade, something comforting. The brains behind the operation point to a New Yorker named Adam Pierce. He started off the band as solo project, releasing a single called “My Funny Friend Scott” in 1998, which eventually led him to the full-length debut entitled The True Meaning of Boodleybaye.
Skip forward a decade and we find Mice Parade releasing one of the most perfectly aligned albums of the year. It’s got the deceiving effortlessness of Jose Gonzalez married to the most intricate of electronic soundscapes, assembling something just so simply complex. From the vocals to the string arrangements to the flourishing percussion, the album takes you in deep, making you feel alone and sad, but always maintaining a sense of stability and sagaciousness. It’s this concurrence that makes you wonder how a man could wrap his head around such delicately complex songwriting.
Pierce needed a break from the never-ending tour that came with the 2005 release of Bem-Vinda Vontade, transporting himself from the concrete jungle to the country, full of peaceful air and serenity. There he spent time impersonating the crew on HGTV, converting an old garage into a wonderfully comfortable recording studio—something he knows perhaps too much about. And after the last socket was fireproofed, the recording process began.
Album opener “Sneaky Red” creeps up on you with an off-time, jazz-induced pop-and-snap beat, inspired by either Amon Tobin or Gene Krupa. The song jumps from hard to soft and back again, with Pierce’s older-brother, it’s all-good monotone vocals soothing what sounds like rough waters ahead. Knowing that a lot of this was done via electronics, he somehow found a way to conjure up the essence of a live recording—some of the echoes and delays don’t seem like possible electronic recreations.
Following that track is “Tales of Las Negras,” which features Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier. Once again, the mood is altered so implicitly that you can’t tell if this is a love song or a suicide note in disguise. The sedate vocals delivered by both Sadier and Pierce act as a blanket on a frigid evening, giving you just enough solace to allow you to fall asleep, for a little while at least.
This feeling is captured throughout the record, but no more than on “Double Dolphins on the Nickel.” What that means is anyone’s guess. It sounds like a term an experienced gambler would use to describe a full house consisting of two Jacks and three fives. The song starts off with the supple breathing and maddening whispers of Pierce and vocalist Kristin Anna Valtysdottir, who takes the lead on this ominous lullaby. The percussion sounds like a guest appearance by Cinematic Orchestra, tracked on top of layers upon layers of subtle synths, guitars and a xylophone. Valtysdottir’s vocals soothe and scare the crap out of you at the same time. It’s so eerily beautiful—like an ambush—where you fall deeply in love, just enough that you let down your guard before the kill. It’s not really that dark, but there is this lifelike feel to the song that could really become life or death, love or loss, pain or happiness.
Of the nine songs on Mice Parade, all have similarities, but sound nothing at all alike. It acts as a soundtrack to a life you wish was your own—or not. Trying to explain the emotional impetus behind “Snow” would be like reading your best friend’s diary, unveiling the deepest of secrets. The album is perfect for so many moods. It’s moving and relentless, yet beautiful and innocent. Adam Piece has conjured up brilliance in that old woodland area near Bear Mountain. Hopefully next time he’ll set up his studio in an Igloo.
Mice Parade will be out May 22 on Fat Cat
