ZEKHENU UAUT SETEKH

'Zekhenu Uaut Setekh' - Senmuth (5/10)

Even after dozens of albums having been released, Senmuth still manages to throw the occasional curveball into his music, and the way he composes it. With 'Zekhenu Uaut Setekh', Senmuth makes his first one-song album, and while some may consider that nothing more than a singles EP at first glance, this single song (called 'Intermediate's Disaster') clocks in at around forty-one minutes long. While this may be a very exciting prospect for a familiarized listener of Senmuth's music (such as myself), the actual music itself is not all that dissimilar from the typical ethno-ambient work, making this an album that contributes little in the overall scope of Senmuth's vast discography.

Concerning the album/song title and the overlying theme, the album revolves around the destruction of the Middle Kingdom in Egypt, an apparent spiritual sequel to the album 'Rstw', which dealt with a similar matter. As a result of a theme that revolves around the decay of a civilization that Senmuth obviously holds in high esteem, the music here is dark and tense, but not to such an extremity that it makes the rather dull music here sound much different from anything else Senmuth has written.

The music falls firmly into dark ambient territory, with a couple of recurring themes throughout the drawn out piece to give it a bit of structure. However, anyone expecting any sort of 'epic' here will come out dissapointed. The music here reprises many of the instruments Senmuth typically uses in his music, including atmospheric electronics, electric guitars (either pseudo- melodic lead work, or crushing industrial rhythms) and the tribal percussion work that's defined some of his earlier work.

While the album is great to put on as a somewhat interesting piece of background music, the album rarely manages tot take advantage of such a promising album premise, instead sounding like a few very drawn out ideas stacked together into one forty-one minute long compilation. Disappointing, but decent.

I was sitting on a sofa, headphones on my ears and eyes closed. Not a single muscle was moving while I was listening for the second consecutive time to this single-track album. I was very curious to listen to the first very long track by Senmuth.

It's a track full of the unusual passages "out-of-pitch" that Senmuth seems to like a bit too much for my tastes, but the whole environment is more consistent than usual. As in any good epic, even if I can't call this one an epic only basing on the track's length, the main theme comes and go several times with little variations....

Well, I was in the middle of the track and somebody took my headphones off saying "It's about ten minutes that I call you, what the hell are you doing?"

Now you know that my wife doesn't like prog.

But you also know that I like Senmuth.

Effectively this is the "normal" ethno-industrial-egyptian-techno-metal stuff, only 4 times longer than usual. I don't know if it's because I have listened to so much Senmuth that it's like a pint for an alcoholist: one more doesn't make the difference.

No. It's a good album, instead. It's dark and made of different sections. After 9 minutes of the main theme repeated in several forms, there's a section that I would define psychedelic, with noises, a gong and strings. It's a dark symphony, evocative of something esotheric. I can imagine the Egyptian priests preparing the Pharaoh's corpse for his last travel in a weird ritual. But it's also spacey. The Egyptian priests are in touch with the aliens. This is a symphony of the dark. I think that a choir would have added deepness to the music, but Senmuth is a one-man-band who self-releases his albums. At minute 15 another change: the symphony is replaced by spacey sounds, but more and more dark. This is an industrial metal section full of percussions and distorted sounds. Very horrorific. Soon the percussions are left alone, with a sound similar to a scream which introduces tha distirted guitar. It's a crescendo into the metal realm with only the percussions acting as connectors with the ethnic part.

Ethnic (electronic) instruments and progressions are back at minute 20, but the landscape is still metallic.

At minute 23 there's a surprise: a peaceful organ which leads another symphonic part. Still dark but more melodic. Just a couple of minutes, the percussions are back again for a ride in the desert. I think this is the most melodic thing that I have ever heard from Senmuth.

There's a fading-out coda and another part begins at minute 29. The transition is not the best, but what comes is an electronic minute which brings us back to the main theme that we had abandoned at minute 9. This time is more symphonic. It's exactly the same theme of the beginning but with a different arrangement.

Still dark, but the Pharaoh has crossed the Nile and is about to meet Osiris.

One important note: this is not the concept of the album. It's how I interpret the sensations that the music gives me. If there's a message hidden in this music is surely more esoteric than I can imagine.

At minute 35 it's like Osiris asks the Pharaoh to take a ride in the deep space on a silver starship. Pure space music in Tangerine Dream style, the TD of the pink period, I mean. In the last minutes the main theme is played one more time over the spacey sounds with echoes and without chords. The starship is about to warp, the spacey sounds increase and the album is done.

It's a strong composition that includes several aspects of Senmuth's music and something that can be of interest for fans of Psych/Space.

Not a masterpiece, maybe, but 4 stars are well deserved.