You'd never expect to hear the word 'collaboration' uttered in the same sentence as the name 'Mark E Smith'. As the less than calm centre of the post-punk tempest known as The Fall, for the last 30 years Smith's autocratic reputation has proceeded him to such a degree that most musicians would do a serious double-take when faced with the daunting prospect of doing anything other than working dutifully under his skewed genius.
However, Mouse on Mars are emphatically not 'most musicians'. In fact for the last ten years Jan St Werner and Andi Toma have been almost peerless in their production of the sonic equivalent of Burroughs' literary 'cut up' technique: an unmatched head-on collision of krautrock ethics, fucked up two-step, weirdly inverted dub and and perverse electronica that tends to result in a dizzying stream of musical consciousness. Little wonder then that when they got together with Mark to record as 'Von Sudenfed' the outcome turned out to be a triumph of free association without contemporary precedent. Dazed Digital caught up with the pair to find out just how it all came about: 

Dazed Digital: Where did the idea for the Von Sudenfed project originate from? 
Jan: Mark and us discovered common ancestors from the Balkans so we started to write a novel about it, but couldn't find a good beginning so decided to record an album instead. 
Andi: We met him at one of our concerts and he asked us for a Mouse on Mars shirt. I gave him mine but he said he wanted one that wasn't full of sweat, so two weeks later he came over to our studio to pick up a new shirt. We played an impromptu session together which became the basis for the songs on the album. 

Dazed Digital - What was it like to work with Mark? 
Jan: He is a member of the workers' union and follows strict working hours, so as self exploiting freelancers we had to get used to tea and lunch time schedules. 
Andi: Mark's voice is pure sound. His way of story telling is like writing a tune with a self-generating shamanic max patch. 

Dazed Digital - Who wore the trousers in the studio? 
Andi: We all worked naked, it's a family tradition. 

Dazed Digital - Can either of you honestly tell us what the hell 'Chicken Yama Yamas' is all about? 
Andi: It's an acid blues polka about a vegetarian who can't boil his chicken. 

Dazed Digital: The video is awesome. Was that an idea you guys came up with? 
Jan: It was the art director Benjamin Huseby's idea. We told him that we didn't want to appear in the video and that he could show anything he wanted as long as we didn't have to mime.

Dazed Digital: Can we expect more Von Sudenfed albums in the future? 
Andi:We'll work on a new album this year and there is an accompanying novel which has yet to be finished.