Indie music: Die Mausis: Cheese instead of Bitcoin

It’s been seven years since Stella Sommer (Die Heiterheit) and Max Gruber alias Drangsal joined forces as Die Mausis to form a new indie super duo and released an EP of the same name overnight. The single “What can a Mouse do for that?” was a nice catchy tune, the other three songs were rather unspectacular additions. And so the short-term public interest evaporated quite quickly without leaving a lasting impression.

The recent announcement that the duo would soon be releasing their debut album was all the more surprising. Some people were probably hoping for a new record from Drangsal or even from Sommer’s regular band Die Heiterheit – the last one with the title “What happened is” is after all over five years old. But in the end you have to be satisfied with the food that is served to you.

Despite all previous doubts, the appetizer in the form of the previously released title track was a surprisingly full-bodied affair, to quote the style of the record. Because the focus here is not on the big issues of the moment, but rather: cheese.

The Mausis would probably immediately question the prioritization made here: So – despite all the current praise for Bitcoin – in “I invest my money in cheese” they sing about the advantages of cheese as an investment in an almost stormy way and without further ado Support from cheese advertising mascot and Tocotronic frontman Dirk von Lowtzow as a singer, with whom both Sommer and Gruber have already worked in the past.

In the song “The Supergouda” they sing about the chase between the police and an innocent mouse and of course don’t shy away from cheesy puns: So the Supergouda quickly becomes the sentence “And then the catastrophe happened.” Naive- Hearing playful sentences like these from Sommer’s mouth is as unusual as it is amusing, as through her work with Die Heiterheit she is known primarily for pathos-soaked texts rather than for playful nonsense lyrics.

But Mausi’s life doesn’t turn out to be completely carefree either. In “ABC of Fears,” Gruber sings about everyday abysses. “There are still so many places left in the big ABC of my fears,” it says. And the touching final track “Am Ufer der Zeit” also stands out from the lightheartedness of the other songs with its melancholic mood.

Musically, the album moves pretty much in the cross-section of Sommer and Gruber’s other oeuvre: Schlager-esque moments meet catchy guitar pop, which this time even has repeated country leanings – which is not just because the two of them play electric against each other on the album swapped acoustic guitars. And with their lovely vocal harmonies they even compete with the Düsseldorf Düsterboys.

And there is something else that unites Die Mausis with the Essen duo: namely the pleasant ability to self-irony without falling into cynicism or even world disgust. On the contrary: when you hear “In a Blue Moon,” you want to hug the world for a brief moment – ​​even if it doesn’t actually deserve it.

The Mausis: “In a Blue Moon” (cheese slices)