Enik

His pithy voice on the last Funkstörung album "Disconnected" may still reverberate in audible remembrance. Enik, a then 23 year old singer from Munich, sang the reputed Bavarian deconstruction duo from its electronica basement up in to the pop story. That was 2004. At almost the same time he makes his debut with the 6 track EP "Without A Bark" on Wonder Records, a piece free of courtesy, whose wild-stylistic peculiarities might well have found friends and foes in commensurate numbers. With "The Seasons In Between", Enik presents his first big-acted album, that comes in brimfully equipped with 14 songs documenting his free-of-comfort-as-possible artistic course through life. Enik prefers to write his songs all alone and he's also recorded various self-taught instruments like bass, guitar and percussion in person. Next to some guest musicians playing drums, saxophone and trumpet is is Hans Tauschek, who not only contributes cello and piano, but also enjoys the privilege among friends, to co-write three songs with Enik. Enik's music is strong meat. Nothing, that form-and-norm aesthetes would want to chew on. "The Seasons In Between" rather caters to what chain-smoking art devourers like to listen to. There is artpop, distortion blues, jazz romance, prog and rock eccentric, dramatic melodies and playhouse electronics, conjunct in anti-authoritarian arrangements, that seem to be tied up by the lose ends of numerous threads. There is brusque and bulky songwriters stuff as in "Rebro" or "Friendly Drifter", whose brute tenor is being corrupted with sweet and melodious moments. A dark-elektro hit like "Why Do You Love Me", or roughneck-RnB styles as in "No Fire", "Warm Space" and maybe "Kids", too, get boogie at least with one dancing leg in a tolerant club. Classically conducted, heartfelt pop ballads like the album title "The Seasons In Between", or the song "Unhealthy Smoke" feature sensitive string passages and enticing harmonies, thus standing up as a witness to true musicality. "Uncomfortably", a chanson with a big band, but also the slow-motion-thriller "Smashing The Glasses" provide information on Enik's jazz past. The same for "The Stolen Eyelight", a song, that gorgeously allows for reading Enik's attitude towards art into it, in case you would want to find there hidden clues for sources of afflatus (Björk? Burroughs?). With "Small Finger", "No Love" and "Safety", Enik finally clambers the first steps on his way to pop olymp. Whoever wants to sound a self-confident echo to titans like David Bowie out of this, may well do so. Enik's means of expression derive from less the the opulence of cinema, but rather the sparse over-acted performance of theater, when he builds his music like a stage design for his protagonist voice. That makes sense, because Enik is a vocal monster, a singing hydra with at least nine voice boxes, of which at least one strives for immortality. His lyrics remain more poetic than concrete and outline an emotional horizon, that is free to be painted by the listeners themselves. Enik has an intuitive approach towards art. He takes no stock in well-crafted concepts in mind and instead tries to rid himself of all things learned, just to advance to the essence of his personality. This rebellion against himself might look egocentric, self-destructive above all, but it also corresponds to a thoroughly honest, almost childlike unpretentious attitude, that has never done damage to art. It makes Enik incorruptible. And opportunism would be the last thing anyone would blame his music for.