Description
Like so many great bands over the years, noise rock aggregate
Mosquito Ego was founded under accidental circumstances.
According to main Mosquito Moritz (also in the punk-as-fuck
Cluster Bomb Unit and the psych-as-hell Metabolismus): “Back in
summer 2013, I ran a club out of a train car in Stuttgart
(Germany). Reinhold asked me to put on a show for a band from
Erfurt. A week before the show, he told that me they have no
backline and play for only 20 minutes. Annoyed that I would have
to bring all of my gear and also that I had to find an opening act to
make the evening worthwhile, I cynically said: I may as well play
on my own. Reinhold didn’t think I was joking and said: Yeah,
let’s do this. Let’s start a band. So we wrote eight songs in one
week.” A classic punk maneuver and an auspicious start for what
has flowered into one of Europe’s most notable, and loud, bands.
Having previously released a few 7”s, the five-piece Mosquito Ego
is set to unleash their first full-length upon an unsuspecting
planet.
A key component of Ever/Never Records’ ambitious 2016 release
schedule, Glomb is a 12-track declaration of intent. A quintet
consisting of Nataly, Tim, Tobi and the aforementioned Moritz
and Reinhold, Mosquito Ego play like a highlight reel of postpunk
and noise rock’s finest moments, movements and gestures.
Underneath a foundation of churning guitar/bass/drums,
electronics sizzle and squiggle, while the entire band gets loose
and weird. Along with each member’s voice, samples and loops
get thrown into the maelstrom; chopped, screwed, pitch-shifted
and hard-panned. “Poke” establishes these parameters from the
outset. All funhouse mirrors and grinding gears, “Local Zero”
sounds like an unearthed Brainiac deep cut. Other parts of Glomb
recall the outre’ avant-rock of Terminal Cheesecake and Slug.
(These are the parts of the ‘90s we need to come back, people!)
But it’s not all sturm und drang; Mosquito Ego is sensitive to your
needs. The series of four short electronic “Glomb” pieces act as
interludes. But really, they’re just set-ups. Side two opener “Onion
Face” is the monster jam on this all-killer slab. The song moves
gracefully from OOIOO-like psychedelia into a cathartic scream-along
back into a raga that leads to more catharsis, and then
ending as sublimely as it began. “Seizure” is the click-pick hit —
try to resist imagining you’re at the coolest party as Mosquito Ego
plays “dressed up in cheap costumes as comic-like characters such
as the electric poodle, ladyboy moustache, the human cannonball,
medication heroine and the sleepover cop.” This gonzo aesthetic is
reflected by Mark Bohle’s eye-popping, synapse-frying cover art.
Fans of genre-bending freak rock like Guerilla Toss will find a lot
to love on Glomb. You will never find a band on Ever/Never halfassing
it. The label is based in New York, the city that invented the
hustle. Mosquito Ego is a singular force both within their local
scenes, and the whole wide world at large.
