REVIEW: SIRIUSMO – THE UNINVITED GUEST (2009)

Setting this straight, American’s viewpoint of German music is woefully limited to Rammstein and commercials of college kids stuck with the Germans’ techno industrial dance music. Outside of that I can’t really say much more about it all, at least until Berlin’s Siriusmo and The Uninvited Guest.

Siriusmo, or Moritz Friedrich, is a bare bones electronic artist with a penchant for keys. Yet we’re saved from the overtly synth dream pop stylings of many musicians today with his preference for basic, hard beats injecting an intensity not usually seen nowadays. Think the way Justice broke into your speakers with “Phantom pt. I” back in 2007. “Let Me In!” was the first slice that cut into my ears instantaneously. A downward spiral into a sampled kid voice is albeit unassuming compared to the profoundly basement-level beats. Think The Cool Kids‘ “Black Mags”, but intentionally focused on moving your entire block instead of just bumping your room.

Another American stereotype of electronic is that it just repeats endlessly, drifting you into a subdued, forced haze akin to musical quicksand. Siriusmo balances this tendency by keeping downtempo, less pulsing songs short as with “The Uninvited Guest” and “High Together”. A lull does appear in keys-driven “Nights Off”; the absolute sonic equivalent of rolling your windows down in the summer night, driving down a traffic-less road.

You do get two tracks that just don’t quite cut it, the ending “Von Kopf Bis Fuss” and “MBox” (in fact, the bonus track). Yet “Nights Off”, which was featured on my year-end mix for 2009, is that hinge pin to convert any electronic skeptics.

Rating: 8.2/10

John

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Founder, Editor, Writer, Photographer. (Austin, Texas)

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