Siriusmo – Mosaik review

Berlin based producer Siriusmo has been releasing music for over a decade now, with his own unique slant on electronic funk remaining one of the few constant joys amidst all the trends and micro genres that have come and gone in that period. The talent and innate ability to craft a groove demonstrated across a raft of EPs and remixes over the years has ensured there’s always been a growing clamour for something more substantial, an album shaped insight into the intriguing musical mind of Moritz Friedrich. Factor in the paucity of live Siriusmo performances due to a tragic case of stage fright and you can consider Friedrich to be one of contemporary electronic music’s most enigmatic figures.

Our thanks then to Modeselektor, the German duo who can be considered his peers, label bosses and greatest admirers. Not only for coaxing this debut album out of Friedrich, but also instilling the confidence in him to start performing live. Mosaik opens with the sound of applause that precedes the familiar strains of “High Together” and by the time it finishes some seventy minutes later with the elongated machine funk of “Red Knob” you feel compelled to react in a similar fashion. It’s pretty clear that Berlin’s finest purveyor of fuzzy electronic funk wanted listening to Mosaik to be something truly special.

Reining in a fondness for hording productions, Friedrich has been able to weave together older tracks such as “Nights Off” and “123” with new material to present an album that retains his core and very much distinct musical identity. Friedrich’s inherent ability to craft heavily electronic grooves dripping with a unique funk and a sense of humour startles across the course of the seventeen tracks here. Furthermore it’s the diversity of sounds covered over the course of an hour that ensure Mosaik never touches on monotony, with even the weakest track here delivered with a titular tongue in cheek pomp all too absent from the serious business of electronic music.

Tony Poland