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Just
in time for the holidays, funk-pop rockers Sirsy have released,
Some Kind Of Winter, a snowy CD offering for their fans
with takes on several seasonal classics, including "Santa
Baby," "Please Come Home for Christmas," and an
original Sirsy tune, the title track, "Some Kind of Winter."
If the band's sultry tonic warms your spirits, perhaps you should
also try stuffing your stocking with Ruby, the band's gem
of a follow up to At This Time.
Buy
Ruby at the WOMANROCK MusicShop!
Whereas
on previous CDs the band was attempting to understand its sound,
on Ruby the group stamps it, according to Sirsy's Melanie
Krahmer (vocals, flute).
"We
played these songs live together a lot before we recorded them
and we recorded the rhythm tracks live, so the sound of 'a band'
is what you get here," says Krahmer. "I think that on
our other albums that energy got a bit lost because we often had
hired guns playing the songs and not people who ate and slept
the songs like we did here … There was this really open,
warm, and honest vibe in the studio and the songs benefited from
that. The four of us (Rich Libutti, Greg Nash, Andres Jatombliansky
and I) all make up the sound that is Sirsy and finally we have
an album that captures that."
Sirsy's
goal with Ruby was to create a good pop album, but the
band's quick to stress that 'pop' is not a dirty word. Hooks and
catchy melodies are a hallmark of Sirsy's writing. Another common
goal for the record was to focus on "the songs" and
the band toiled to uncover each track's personality, carefully
representing what they found in the different parts they recorded,
the way they played parts, and in the overall production.
"We
always try to write a song that 'sounds like us' so that it is
honest and true," says Krahmer. "Sometimes you write
a song that ends up feeling like you're borrowing someone else's
shirt and it just doesn't fit. There were a lot of these ideas
that just didn't feel right for this album. So we'd move on until
we found something that did feel right … I wanted people
to feel what these songs were saying and the only way I knew how
to do that was to feel them myself … On the surface, 'By
July' seems to be an upbeat pop song about love," continues
Krahmer. "It's really more about the fear of letting yourself
feel worthy of being loved, about 'feeling the sun' when the 'rain'
is so much easier … 'Soul Sucker'" was inspired by two
sources. The first was a string of not so wonderful shows. This
happens at times when you play as many shows as we do. Sometimes
you are just stuck in the corner of a bar and you play to the
backs of people's heads and it seems as though you're pouring
yourself out to people who just suck your soul up and give you
nothing back. The second was a postal worker who used to ask us
every day (we mail band stuff daily), 'When are you going to give
up this music hobby of yours and get a real job?'"
The
answer is no time soon. Sirsy's have picked up quite a bit of
critical praise lately. They've been voted "Best Band"
by readers of their native Albany's Metroland, and "Best
Band" and "Concert of 2004" by readers of The Albany
Times. The band has also recently been featured daily on the WB
Network in Albany and Boston.
Find
out more about Sirsy at: www.sirsy.com.
Tina
Whelski is a NY-based freelance writer/photographer who's a regular
columnist for the Aquarian Weekly/East Coast Rocker and WomanRock
and contributes to Music Connection, Starpolish, Good Times and
others.
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1999-2004. WOMANROCK.com. All Rights Reserved.
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