Marriage

Mise En Abyme is ML Mae, Ahn Mae, Chesty Mae, and Jesquibel Mae. They make German-sounding avant-garde electropop, but in America. Myspace.

MISE EN A TOUR:

DISCOGRAPHY:

Do You Hear The Hum, Marriage Records, 2006
Is Orange Birds, Marriage Records compilation, 2005
Jesquibel, Marriage Records, 2005
Cat and Cake, soundtrack to video art by Gideon Klindt, 2004
Crochet, Marriage Records, 2003
Circles As Loops, soundtrack to video art by Gideon Klindt, 2002
Ingredients 2005 and 2006, Music Video Challenges

LYRICS:

Do You Hear The Hum

Some more reviews

The following from The Wire UK magazine Issue 258, August 2005 (w/ Red Krayola on the cover):
by Louise Gray

"Mise En Abyme, a trio from Portland, Oregon, with a taste for a nicely turned French idiom and a bit of literary theory, are less self-referential than their name might suggest. Which means, firstly, that Jesquibel, their second album after the well-dressed Crochet (which came with its own woollen CD cosy), is not so hung up on its own structural presence as it could be. And secondly, that this album (which seems to be named in honour of Mise En Abyme's guest guitarist Jonathan Esquibel) has its own ideas of how to proceed. ML Mae, Ahn Mae and 'Chesty' Mae (one suspects similar kinship arrangements to The Ramones) form a post-rock, post-electronic group whose oddly beguiling fractured songs say something about their own composition process."

"There's a whiff of Yo La Tengo about them. Listening to the mood changes of the skittery opener, "Reaching", or the more freeform "A Life of Sequence", it is as if all options, all opinions are being expressed. Tracks can change direction, or collapse in on themselves. The nine minute "Glass" fades away after four minutes or so and the rest of it allotted span -- it could be four minutes 33 seconds, but it's difficult to measure exactly -- is silent. The group take a low-key, but highly effective, approach to samples, building tranches of rhythmical noise out of the most basic elements. Coupled with vocals that range from a droning male chorus in near unison to a more decisive and accomplished female voice ("Parachutes" is a Le Tigre song from a parallel universe). The bonus track, called simply enough "Bonus Track", is a most lovely thing: hilarious and dreamy in equal measures. Its jangling guitar riff and a far-off keyboard back a magnificently lugubrious vocal about how nothing is real. There is, oddly enough, a flavour of an old Frankie Knuckles idea in its repetitive movement, but the end vocal lines -- "Oh damn ... damn!" -- repel any notion of peace. Fabulously weird, and just fabulous."

And from Issue 47 of Resonance Mag we quote:
"Mise en abyme may invite comparisons to Yo La Tengo. The line-up, M.L. and Ahn Mae, a married couple, and their buddy Christopher Himes, provides the obvious similarity, but the Maes also display some musical tendencies of their Hoboken doppleganger. Named after the internal artistic spiral (as a mirror in painting, reflecting the scene back into itself infinitely), the band spews electronic meanderings and delicate folk songs that pulse forward only to lap back on themselves. Reiterated lyrical and melodic themes give way to fuzzy psychedelia or rolling beats, best demonstrated by "The Magicians" and "Parts Attack". But the lengthy closer, "Glass," is the apotheosis of Mise en abyme's understated approach, hitting varied but consistently thoughtful grooves that allow these mechanized compositions to grow into a delightfully organic whole." - - Alex Stimmel.

For Do You Hear The Hum:
in The Willamette Week and All Music Guide and AnimalPsi and Pop Matters and Foxy Digitalis

HERE IS A MOVIE OF THE MISE EN ABYME INNER WORKINGS

MISE'S PERSONAL ASIDES