ER HU PERET EM HERU

'Er Hu Peret Em Heru' - Senmuth (4/10)

As part of a discography that outsizes many others multiple times over, it is no surprise that a fair deal of Russian one man project Senmuth's music seems to sound alike. After having produced so many albums, it must become increasingly difficult to compose a piece that sounds unique. While Senmuth continues to impress me with albums here and there that really jump out of convention, there is alot of the man's work that seems to get caught in a rut. Closing in on around twenty albums in three years, Senmuth's 'Er Hu Peret Em Heru' is unfortunately one of the albums that fails to spark any unique interest from me.

As is pretty casual of this point in Senmuth's work, the music is instrumental, typically ambient, and attempts to bring to mind, ancient and exotic realms and cultures. A very defining feature of the project's music is the presence of strong ethnic sounds, and 'Er Hu' shows that Senmuth is beginning to blend the sounds of several cultures under a single title, which is both interesting, but also means the albums he wrote at this point have a harsh tendency of feeling too similar to each other.

In terms of composition and the execution of which; Senmuth is clearly skilled at making complex arrangements of music, but there's no sense of genuine feeling to the music. A couple of songs (the second track 'Hal Tarksien' comes to mind) have some memorable musical ideas in them, but for the most part, the compositions seem too scattered, always building up, but failing to ever go anywhere with it. That being said, Senmuth's real talent lies in his keen ability to merge sounds together and adopt any style of his choosing, and 'Er Hu' demonstrates this to some extent.

'Er Hu Peret Em Heru' does not suffer from any fatal flaw, and it is a functional ambient raga rock record, but there doesn't feel like there is a reason to check this out, unless the goal is to listen to every record that this prolific composer has to offer.

One can get tired after several similar albums, maybe disappointed if what you're listening to is not at the same good level of the previous one. This is what happened to me after the very good Bark Of Ra. I had to skip Evolution:Exodus as it's no longer available on Senmuth's website.

This is a lengthy album, over 70 minutes, which contains the now usual raga-metal. There are no tracks that can be considered highlights or weaknesses as the whole album flows seamlessly. Respect to the first albums the metal element appears here and there but it's almost totally replaced by the ethnic side (Egypt and India).

"Kitab Al Mayyit" and "Exerro" have something more. In particular the second is based on percussion and has a very dark flavour. It could be suitable for a SciFi or a horror movie.

Compared to Bark Of Ra, on this album Senmuth has put less effort in the melodies but this si not a bad album. In the end I don't think it's less valuable than albums like "Kami-No-Miti", "Dolgo Y Pusto" or his second work "Izoteri-ka".

As all the instrumental albums of this period of Senmuth's career, this is one of those good also for car driving. It doesn't require much attention as Internal Images and doesn't contain the heavy industrial noise or the distorted voice which can be of disturb when one listens with few attention.

It has its heavy moments like in "Hal Tarxien" or in "Ways of Researchers are Inscrutable", but they are not so heavy, specially if one is used to Senmuth's music.

A good album, after all.