EXOUNIVERSE

'Exouniverse' - Senmuth (6/10)

Without a doubt one of Senmuth's stranger albums thematically, 'Exouniverse' draws it's inspiration not from the typical exotic cultures of multi-instrumentalist Valery Av's fascination, but from the metaphysics of the universe, beyond our solar system. Mirroring this otherworldly concept is the use of a greater presence of electronics, when compared to other albums by this Russian artist. Despite a few fundamental flaws in the way the music is written, Senmuth's 'Exouniverse' is an interesting ambient work.

Possibly now best described as 'experimental world rock', Senmuth alway manages to throw in an impressive melange of styles into his music. Everything from electronic to folk to metal and everything in between, there's not much else that sounds quite like the music of Valery Av. Without a doubt, 'Exouniverse' is a bit of a more experimental approach to Senmuth's work. Sonic experiments such as 'Galaxies Merge' show Valery going as far as to literally merge two different pieces of music together, to create something very chaotic. While the sentiment and intention of this is very cool, the end result is something that sounds way too muddy and wonton to produce any real effect.

As with many of Senmuth's works, this is very ambient in nature, meaning that more often than not, the music will slip into the background, acting moreso as mood-setting music over an all- encompassing experience. This might be the biggest flaw for Senmuth, as the music does lack the power and energy of engaging music, but contends with too much structure and dryness to work completely as an ambient work. This is the large issue that ultimately deters from great enjoyment of 'Exouniverse'.

For an album that was crafted in a remarkably short time however, 'Exouniverse' is quite an impressive work. Some interesting, engaging musical ideas (especially in the electronic atmospherics and bass lines) and some partially successful sound experiments make for an album that brings something to the table, even if Senmuth has a great deal of albums that cover very similar grounds.

Now that I'm reviewing my 54th Senmuth's album I think it's time to spend some words about this kind of music before going into the specific. What you can expect in more or less all the Senmuth's album is a fusion of ethnic (North African, Middle and Far Eastern) music, with elements of techno (drones, loops) , industrial metal (distorted vocals, growls, background noises) and progressive electronic (repetitive chords progressions in Edgar Froese's and sometimes Vangelis style).

All those things together make Senmuth. The central concepts behind all his music are: esoterism, metempsychosis, ancient Egypt and ancient civilizations in general, ancient forgotten scientific knowledge and sometimes travel into the deep space as in this album. Even with all the electronics, Senmuth is an excellent guitarist and you can find good guitar parts hidden behind the industrial noises. Sometimes he plays acoustic and classical guitar, too, and it's where he shows all his skill.

Exouniverse is one of the rare Senmuth's albums which are based on space instead of Earth or esotheric realms, and one of the many instrumentals.

So we have the opener and the closer which have no percussions and are very close to Tangerine Dream and all the other tracks more in line with the industrial metal thing. There's no Senmuth's album, and this is not an exception, without a dark background. This is where "Relic Radiation" and "Epoch Reionization" are different from Tangerine Dream. Both excellent tracks, anyway.

"Synchronous Creation Of Space" is unusually melodic for this artist. It starts gaplessly where the opener ends and flows nicely until the end. Some string instruments add the usual middle-eastern touch, but the central concept is space this time.

"Galaxies Merge" opens very ethnic, instead. Regardless its title has a tribal mood even if mitigated by spacey keyboards, at least until the percussion-wooden flute middle section.

"Redlightshift" is back to progressive electronic. There are obsessive percussions and dark spacey keyboards mixed with mandolins or similar instruments. There's also a very good electronic bass interlude.

The alternance of space and ethnic continues with "Cosmology Singularty". This track starts with ethnic instruments but at the same time the metal element is very strong. This is a track that will surely be of interest to who has never listened to Senmuth before as it contains almost all his influences.

"Dark Invisible Weight" is again electronic and very dark with the infusion of arabic sounds. It suffers a bit of the useless changes of pitch in which Senmuth sometimes falls and that I find a bit disturbing but it has a consistent structure so it's good enough even if not a highlight.

"Zero To Zillions" is more symphonic than the previous tracks. It starts with percussions and a wind instrument which plays a lot of notes, alternated with symphonic keyboards. Not a masterpiece also this, but nice enough.

"Black Point For Disappearance Of Light" is an impressive title for the longest track of the album. It's a progressive electronic track reminder of the first albums like Cognitive Discord, when the ethnic element was still not so dominant, but without the industrial noise behind. I don't want to say that it's a chill-out track, mainly because of its darkness, but I can imagine it played after a rave party.

As I have already written, the closer is spacey and it makes me think to TD's Zeit, that's a compliment for how much I like the pink period of Tangerine Dream.

I think it's an excellent (free of charge) addition, so 4 stars.