MOUTHS started as a project in 2005 between Jon Mueller and Jim Schoenecker using percussion, analogue synthesizer, shortwave radio and human voice. The focus is to combine each element to create a chorus of sorts, culminating in all ’mouths’ emitting their voices together without negating the other. The combination of human voice within tones from analogue electronics creates a demanding exercise of sustain against the ’perfection’ of machines. Once achieved, the effect is a satisfying and dense manifestation of texture and harmony that’s as physical as it is otherworldly. Over the last year, the duo has also been joined by Werner Mobius and Carol Genetti, both in performance and recording.
Recorded works consist of "1V2E" on Entr’acte (UK), and the forthcoming "3V1."
Reviews:
"Mouths is Jon Mueller, Jim Schoenecker and, for this live performance, Werner Moebius. “IV2E” is 15 or so minutes of intense, deep flutter, burrowing dronage and waylaid radio folded into one helluva piece. It’s an accretive work, simple enough in structure in that layers emerge (sometimes added, sometimes just hoving into the foreground), levels of detail multiply and volume increases. It’s unfailingly interesting and gripping, the initial propeller-like thrum grabbing a hold somewhere in your bowels and twisting. There’s a bunch of percussion hidden back there as well, both scrapings and thuds, that adds a crucial, grainy seasoning to the affair. Beautiful ending as well, in a small flurry of quiet clicks and a rhythmic squeak. Powerful work, makes me wish I had been there." - Brian Olewnick, Bagatellen
"I hear hypertensive rumbles, halfway through an overcharged heartbeat pumping in the auricular membranes and a mountain of pitch-transposed electric razors working at the very same moment, while dampened echoes of pneumatic drills come from the outside. The voices from the radio creep under this mass of distorted radiation, the essence of a rhythm revealing its incessant breath as more and more convulsive, until the overwhelming power of the percussive sources becomes the dominant rule in an Organum-meets-tornado bellowing paranoia." - Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes
