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Tracklist: “Touch” * “Silly Romance” * “Eiskalt (in der Liebe und im Krieg)” * “Flesh & Blood” * “Easy Living” * “My Life” * “Do with Me What You Want” * “Guilty” * “Justice” * “Le Weltanschauung (Les Jeux Sont Faits)” * “New Order” * “Part again” * “Do Widzenia”

Read Viva Music’s review of Mona Mur & En Esch’s “120 Tage: The Fine Art of Beauty and Violence” here | Read about Mona Mur & En Esch (Tanz Ohne Musik opening) in Bucharest (promoter: Lux Noctis) here.

Mona Mur & En Esch “Do with Me What You Want”: Viva Music Album Review:

Released on Sep-13 with Artoffact Records, Mona Mur & En Esch’s second album titled “Do With Me What You Want” comes two years after their previous collaboration “120 Tage: The Fine Art of Beauty and Violence” as a confirmation of the strong bond between the two artists and the springing creativity of their respective musical lives; the album is vibrant, powerful, and with the same refined conceptual framework that the two artists accustomed us with in their 2009 collaboration.

With a very interesting cadence to it, “Touch” explores the darker side of their collaborative style, already enthusing and teasing at full tilt from the very first seconds of the track. The feeling does not decrease in either intensity of sensitivity as “Touch” flows, and the monument of sound it builds wells up so many desires and the adjacent responsiveness to them, that it becomes difficult to keep up with the flooding emotions and the charismatic sound of this track. Spilling over in infrequent but piercing jets of sound, “Silly Romance” has nothing silly about it, and devours with its sonic claws in a majestic predator moment the last traces of vulnerability and idyll that we could have kept as a species up to 2011. Summing up a lighter sequence of sounds than its preceding track, “Silly Romance” lacks neither in substance nor in style, and its melancholic shrew song soars alongside the masterful guitar solo. If this was meant to be a song for the jilted, then you should really hold your breath for the upcoming “Eiskalt (in der Liebe und im Krieg)” (German for “Ice-cold (in Love and War)”), the sounds of which seem to penetrate layer upon layer of sensitivity and drill forth to the center of control. In a joint venture of melody and stern German lyrics, the song reaches out in the same dark matter the lid of which flew off the jar in “Touch”. With equal force of persuasion, Mona Mur & En Esch’s “Easy Living” (an inspired cover for Uriah Heep’s 1972 homonymous song) takes in the impact of their joint chant of “Flesh & Blood”, which opens up multiple universes of physical and spiritual becoming. Not unlike the previous tracks, the revolt encompassed in the space of “My Life” is woven from the same thread anthems and protest songs are made of; and its strength and clear optics subside in the title that gives the name of the album, “Do with Me What You Want”, which combines the refinement of the previous songs with a shriller, and more cadenced violence of sound. The track in itself is nothing but pure beauty, and it brings to mind several associations that simply cannot be brushed off easily. It sounds at the same tame as an occult gathering around a steaming cauldron, like the voiceover of a political protest, and like an unstaged performance from the golden age of rock. “Guilty”, with its added sexiness and then “Justice” with its puzzling shifts of force like in a dangerous mind game, are both specifically beautiful musical renditions. “Le Weltanschauung (Les Jeux Sont Faits)” (German/French “Outlook on the World (Chips Are Down)” reminds in its perfect musical arrangement and the joint vocal effort of the artists the music of Fangoria, which was a very nice surprise, in that it shows versatility and supreme efficiency with sound and voice. “New Order” is a blaring, successful composition, with a very austere tempo, like a musical chronicle of the changing times we live in, and its dual, suave/sharp significance, it prepares the curtain fall of “Part Again” (not unsentimentally so, if the title refers to the second parting produced by this second album), and of “Do Widzenia” (Polish: “Farewell”), the latter acting as both an album coda and as a tribute to the Polish heritage of Mona Mur, who not only descends from Polish parents, but also flirted in her early career with groups and music of Polish inspiration.

“Do with Me What You Want” is a multifaceted and progressive album, with a definite feel and a well-concerted outlook on love, war, protest, sensuality and the manner in which we conduct our relations in intimacy and the public sphere. With the title serving as a commanding line, but also as a safe word despite its undeniable openness and self-renunciation, the album is clearcut, incisive and exquisite. Enjoy!

Mona Mur & En Esch – Official Website | on Facebook