Album: Enthusiast
Artist: Siriusmo
Label: Monkeytown
Release Date: 14/6/2013
Someone derrail me, I'm on a ‘second album' binge with this Album of the Week series. The general trend with the second artist albums seems to be a mellowing of sounds, perhaps a perfection of technique and a smoothing of edges… T'aint nothin' mellowed about German eccentric Siriusmo's second collection. But who's surprised? This Monkeytown artist seldom treads the expected path, whether that manifests in his recurrent forays into melodic and rhythmic anarchy, his severe stage fright and subsequent lack of performance, his frequently dance floor inappropriate electronic music or the mysterious allusions to this album being his final offering before retiring from the music scene (whyyyyyyyyyyy).
So if one accepts that Enthusiast will not follow established conventions, or even adhere to any internal rules, one can appreciate that it is wildly creative and most importantly - fun. The staccato plucking of ‘Itchy' is strangely pleasurable, lumbering laid back beat of 'Tränen aus Bier' is deliciously heavy and the unexpectedly conventional disco/funk number ‘Congratulator' is going straight in my fool-proof-house-party-saver tunes stash. Tracks like ‘Rantaplant' and ‘Cornerboy' are pretty off the wall and borderline unpleasant, but never fear, at no point does Siriusmo indulge in those extended barrages of dissonance your music teacher made you “appreciate” in university. Moments of calm clarity are found in ‘Liu' and album closer ‘Leftovers' and overall I think his eclecticism balances itself out.
Thanks to a notoriously unreliable beat, I doubt you'll be hearing much of Enthusiast on dancefloors in the coming months (though label heads Modeselektor will surely show their support). Therefore I encourage you to purchase the album, and kill some time in the weird and colourful world this music and art lover has carefully created for you.
We asked a few questions of Siriusmo about the album and he's come back with some brief, slightly confusing, but somehow endearing answers...
Why is Monkeytown the right label to release this album on?
"I'm not a good businesman, so it is good to have friends you can trust there running a label so I dont have to worry about all this organisation stuff."
How long did it take to make, and does it sound like what you imagined when you began the process?
"There was not really a starting point, because I am always doing or trying something with sounds. So it's developing and changing the whole time, and at the end you have no idea if it's good or bad but I always try to remember the first moment when I start the song, I was really into it, so, there should be something!"
Can you talk us briefly through the instruments and technology you used?
"Some old synthezisers and computer stuff, my hardware hasnt really changed over the last years. But for the computer is always something new, too much to follow everything...but I'm interested!"
Who had the stinky wig? And how did the track earn the title?
"It just sounds like a wig! And 'stinky' should just pretend a kind of roughness in the name! ... Always the problems with the song names..."
Have you played any of the album to a live audience? If so, how does it go down in a dance floor situation?
"Two times, and I can't really tell, I was staring at my fingers. I was too nervous!"
