SENMUTH

"Хicаlliс Еzticа" features his ethnicity full of bizarre distortion with intensive vigorous guitar explosions as well. Strong curiosity to orientalism and experimentalism should be his massive power and energy for prolificacy. And such a contralateral mixture is also promising. "Сhiconquiаhuitl" is amazingly too melodious, mystic, and calm for his production to involve a big charm that can absorb the audience. Sounds like we are deeply meditating in a dark temple with listening to this song. Meanwhile, in the following "Ixpoluia Tepamitl" we can be caught by his deadly guitar-oriented dark nebula and weird ethnic melodic experiment. Such a mysterious orientality created with percussion and wind instruments is fantastic, also as for "Maxelihui Miqui Аhuiyac", where we join serious urgent impression launched via the song's atmosphere. The last "Tlahuacapa Itech Tlalticpac" is a wonderful combination of heaviness, postrock essence, and newage texture ... regardless of the shortest stuff in this album, potential and encouragement through it should be enormous.

Anyway he's been in hibernation for half a year since the latest album released ... it's a kind of serious situation he's gone out of activity for six months or more. I'm afraid he would have been burnt out whilst finishing this opus. Please come back soon.

His energetic memories can be heard especially through the second track "Nitlасhie Imania", the longest one in this album. Darkly atmospheric opening is quite meaningful. Followed by heavy, violent guitar dissonance that should beat our brain. The middle movement full of oriental calmness and weird, mystic ambience cannot stabilize our inner mind. But we can grab out his powerful attitude in the latter part ... he might say he never loses now and forever no matter how difficult the circumstances around him are. Of course, challenging issues will not change in future. Such a painful heart attack might be launched via the following track "Itznoxochiuh" drenched in tribal, ethnic melody texture and global musical essence mixture.

Love also drastically sticky metallic psychedelia in "Caquiztini". Distortion of melodic bases and repetitive rhythmic tremens are pretty attractive and addictive. On the other hand "Tliltic Mixаyahuitl" sounds eerier, weirder along with mysterious percussion and offensive electronika. These vibes drive us into madness. The last "Tonаlpolihuiyampа" could give us a slight warmth of the sun. Wondering if it's only me to feel such a warm atmosphere is kinda personal touch or personal nudge. Or his wondrous ethnicity makes me feel so I imagine? At any rate, this brilliant creation produced by his great creativity should be welcome.

The third track is about a physical phenomenon: "Enceladus Cryovolcanism". Harp notes on a windy background. Quite psychedelic.

Honestly I have no idea of what a Musica Pearl Thread means in relation to Saturn, but it may have something to do with the planet surface and the curves painted by the motion of gas on its surface. The track has an interesting melody sustained by a deep bass which unfortunately doesn't stand for the whole track. Anyway, it's unusually melodic compared with the normal Senmuth's output. The last minute seems to belong to a different track, but it's not bad, too.

Electronic noises, possibly the same captured by probes, start Northpolar Hexagonal Cloud Feature. This is a very weird astrophysical curiosity: the North pole on Saturn has a perfect hexagon painted on it. A slow crescendo driven by bass transforms the noises. It's dark, but it may even work as soundtrack for a documentary. Very interesting.

Is CrAO related to chromium oxide? Possible. Now there's some piano and even a bit of acoustic guitar in the deep background. The melody seems to be played by a cetra. If it wasn't so dark, it could be considered a newage track. The drone drums are similar to Vangelis' Chariots of Fire, but we can't expect anything non-dark in a Senmuth's album.

Back on Earth, in the age of the Roman Empire with Saturnalia: the Magna Mater orgiastic rituals. An electronic disease explodes suddenly after a long intro and persists when the main theme from the intro is restarted.

Among The Star Placer is exactly a space-rock piece. Dark, of course, it really gives the idea of space travel on a dark solitary starship. Senmuth has given more importance than usual to his bass which also in this track plays very deep notes.

Now an indian mantra dedicated to the Shani of the first track. Percussion and noises are companions to the mantra sung by a female voice. It makes it not suitable for meditation, but it's a very interesting mix. This is the album closer: as in any good prog album, especially instrumentals, the last track closes the circle with the first, even if the very last track of the album is a 4 minutes edit of track 2.

Artists are not guilt for the crimes of their chairmen so I wanted to review a Russian album in the first day of 2022's spring which reminds me to another spring: that of Prague in 1968.

Seyaat is a Turkish word wich means "Journey", or "Trip", and in order to have a journey we need a "Yol" (road in Turkish). It's just a 2 minutes introduction used to set the mood, not dissimilar from the usual dark ambient music typicial of this artist. During the first moments of this trip we have some problems with "Intimidating Water Injury", this is how Google translates the title of the second very short track, which is darker than the previous: about 50 seconds of bells and dreamy sounds which lead to "Yıldız" (Star, but also the name of an University). This track is very unusual in Senmuth's discography. Despite some background sounds and percussion, it's based on a short progression of chords on acoustic and 12-strings guitar. The melody is played on a third clean guitar. I honestly think that he should use guitars more often in his works. This track has a sort of early-Floyd mood.

Now we are in a real place: "Çufut Qale" (Jewish fortress) is in Ukraine (if Crimea can still be considere part of Ukraine). The track starts with a distorted guitar chord Which can remind to "The Nile Song" from Pink Floyd's "More", but it turns into a regular Senmuth's instrumental after few seconds. Again a dark ambient track which luckiky doesn't contain the sudden changes of pitch which I think sometimes jeopardize what may be a good track. This is one of the most melodic albums ever released by Senmuth. This track lasts about 12 minutes and is the album's hilight.

The journey continues to the other side of the Black Sea: "Sağanaq" means "Hard Rain", but now we are in Azerbaijan, even if there's a "Sağanaq Restaurant" in Istanbuln but the thunders which open the track don't leave room to any doubt. Again acoustic guitars and keys on minor chords. This is an excellent track, quite bluesy. I have to say that this album has surprised me. It's a sort of standalone thing between hundreds of albums but still recognisable.

Baqla means fava bean in Urdu. With this track we are back to the usual dark ethnic. Obsessive percussion, a bass keyboard note and various noises and middle eastern sounds. The fava bean was also used as medical herb in Egypt and we know that Valery Androsov thinks he is the reincarnation of Sen-em-muth who was Tut-Ankh-Amon's architect.

Back to Turkey, "Gizli Gece" means "Secret Night. This is another typical Senmuth's track, one of those which can be appreciated if you let them transport your mind to ancient times and civilizations. I think that sometimes Senmuth's music works at a subliminal level. At least, it does for me.

"Çatır Dağ" literally means "Mountain shaped as a tent". It's a mountain close to Simferopol, again in Crimea. It has a middle-eastern feeling and alternates parts full of percussion and darker moments. There's also some good distorted guitar.

Finally, "Anğara Boğazı" (Gorge Throat) closes our trip around the Black Sea. It starts with dark sounds, like a descent into an abyss, A sort of harp takes the lead and is joint by tablas and some other kind of percussion. As many Senmuth's tracks, it's cinematic. It may be a good sountrack for a thriller.

This music needs attention and transport. Better on headphones in the dark, and this is one of the best albums released by Senmuth. I rate this "trip" with 4 PA stars.

The two songs in "Neheh Djet" are filled with oriental, tribal atmosphere and soundgarden as well. A female vocalist ArcAnicA sings quite powerfully and energetically like a voice angel or magician. Her clear and cool voices make SENMUTH's experimental orientalism more and more delightful and vivacious. Especially the second track "Kha Neb Sneferu" has a superb melodic impression featuring dynamic, uptempo, serious sound development by him and sensitive, solemn, enthusiastic choir by her. Their massive enthusiasm would be influential for us even if we enjoy strong Vodka and fall into freakout completely. Not so innovative nor novel as his previous works indeed but we will get immersed in his fineness and a (small but) good opus. Looking forward to his upcoming full-length work.

In the second half the ethnic element reappears mainly in the percussion. The hypnotic rhythm which closes the album leaves the listener (myself currrently) almost satisfied. In brief, it's a dark ambient suite in Senmuth's usual style but it seems that he was actually giving up to his unusual sudden changes of tonality and ethnic breaks which sometimes jeopardize his work. Not a masterpiece, but surely a good and enjoyable album if you are in the right (dark) mood.

Every single track has intensional tense atmosphere but it's great the entire album is veiled in a relaxing quiet environment launched by his instruments. "Ivory Ornament" features his beautiful acoustic guitar-based 'spoken words' along with delightful melody lines and soft, smooth percussive rhythmic vibes. The last "Bandiagara" has sticky, repetitive phrases that absorb and wrap up the audience. On the contrary, in "Arak Gorges" we can enjoy weird dissection ambience drenched in fuzzy, freaky electric guitar sounds. Sounds like this soundscape gives us his foresight to the current pandemic situation. The seventh track (how should we pronounce the title?) flooded with mysterious atmospheric endeavour drives us mad really. Anyway, I consider the second masterpiece "Anti-Atlas" should determine the potential of this whole creation. Solemn spiritual activity and lyrical, atmospheric melody lines are crazy fantastic. We would get immersed in his impressive, strong messages.

Finally. Let me say thanks to my progressive rock mate Luca (octopus-4) for notifying me of his wonderful creations.

The first of the three tracks starts with the mentioned guitar, naintaining an ethnic middle eastern mood from the beginning, but the closure is hypnotic with distorted guitar in background, the percussion and that sort of arabic trumpet. The second track is 24 minutes long but reprises the final theme of the previous one. After the intro there's some clean guitar, which is what I like the most from Senmuth: guitar; clean or distorted. And there's a lot of guitar in this album.

The track titles are a sort of loop: Symbol of Light, Light of Sound, Sound of Fortis. Effectively there are recurring themes.

Surprisingly, the long Sound of Symbol is like a bridge: after a lazy progression driven by few bass guitar notes, started fron the end of the first track, in the middle of the track it suddenly turns into a dark psychedelic piece made of percussion and background sounds like bells, noises, rings...very dark ambient music. Even if the guitar disappears in this section, also this is very good if you are in the right mood for it. This is the "discomfortable" thing the album title is likely referencing to. The background noises grow slowly involume and more bells enrich the soundscape, arriving to a sudden stop when the percussion becomes obsessively slow but loud. Behind is like wooden objects are percussed. Knowng Senmuth, it may represent people working on building something.

While this slows down and fades out, the initial theme returns from "downside". This is the bridge to the last track.

There's no pause between the end of the second track and the beginning of the third. Tabla percussion, a minor keyboard's chord, cymbals introduce a strange rhythm, an ethnic interlude and we are suddenly into dark metal with a loud and strongly distorted guitar, but the ethnic part persists in background and is alternated to the distorted phase. The sound of a violin is the glue between the metal and the ethnic parts. Tablas and cymbals are then left alone with some other percussion. It's another hypnotic passage. Accelerations with the presence of the guitar and dark ambient moments alternate continuously and approaching the end of the track there's also a bit of psychedelia before returning to the tablas main theme. Usually I don't like tracks fading out, but in this case I think that there wasn't a best way to close the album. It remains suspended.

Another very good album, despite the incredibly huge number of releases.

This is an unusually calm and melodic album for Senmuth. Dark as usual but with very few percussion. All the tracks are quite short. The whole album scores few more than 30 minutes and some are faded out in the final. Tremendum, which closes the album is a real highlight. Its melody is more consistent than usual. Who is familiar with Senmuth knows that the purpose of the music consists mainly in setting a mood, like an attempt to describe a place, a situation or whatever he wants using only the sensations provided by the music, and melody isn't very relevant in this environment. Mistremendum, instead has a very good balance between the exigence of dramaticity and the melody. The alternance of hard and slow parts doesn't cause any disturb. I just don't like the fading out at the end.

So, despite its shortness, this is a good album, good also for who approaches Senmuth for the first time.

Even if the sounds are typical of this artist and the ethnic middle eastern interludes aren't missed, "Me On" ("With Me" in Greek), is honestly one of the best Senmuth's albums that I've listened to up to now. For those who are used with his music, I can say that there's nothing really new, it's just better than usual. For the others, Senmuth is a one man band usually based on electronics, but he's also a good metal guitarist who uses 7 to 9 strings guitars. His music is very often insoired to the ancient civilizations, Egyptian in particular, and his ethnic interludes are often related to Egypt. His music is dark, even when he goes more "ambient", and this album is not different.

What I find good, is the continuity. Even changing from dark metal to ambient, to ethnic and back, there aren't sudden changes. The various parts flow one into the next so that it can be perceived as a true single track, not a patchwork of shorter pieces tied together (sometimes he did so in the past).

Despite the heavyness of some parts, strange to say, it may work also as background music, depending on your state of mind.