Mosquito Ego - Glomb (2016)

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.