Post by JAI
Award winning composer, vocalist, and superheroine

Photo by Grant Griffiths
Artwork by Katy Sewell

Recently, John Freriks, our programmer/guitarist, moved to Chicago to find work in his field of studies and to move on with his life in a bigger city. This venture will offer him many opportunities that he just won’t find here in small town Madison where jobs are few and people are vastly over-educated. We are truly happy for him and wish him the very best on his new path in the windy city. This does not mean that we won’t continue to write, record and perform music, it just makes it a bit more complicated.

It’s only been a few weeks and already one of the things I miss are our regularly scheduled Thursday rehearsals, the time when we would talk about songs we’re working on and ideas for our next CD, or about sound and lighting from the most recent events we attended or about the political landscape of America. It was the few moments of this particular day where I felt like all parts of my life came together and made sense, but now it feels a bit disjointed and I am struggling to figure out where we go from here.

We will continue to work together using the internet, various applications and communication tools in order to keep making music together, however, not physically being together to talk about all of it is going to be very difficult for me. I truly enjoy the intimacy and connectivity of the weekly rehearsals, getting together to chat about our lives and playing music together. Although my head knows this is a good decision for John, my heart says something entirely different.

With all the recent changes of John’s move and discussion on how we’re going to evolve Sensuous Enemy, we had to make a hard decision. Due to the direction we’re going, we felt the need to pair it down to the bare essentials in order to continue as a more electronic band with a cleaner sound.  We thought long and hard about our decision and finally made the change last month. This doesn’t mean that we won’t ever use a live drummer again, but for now, we’re going to try it without one by programming more drum tracks and having our keyboardists produce synth sounds instead. We are grateful for the time and energy Chris Wenzel gave to Sensuous Enemy and we wish him the very best in his future musical endeavors. Please wish him a good farewell.