6.04

This latest installment in the Misanthrofeel saga is a logical successor to the project's past 'doom' releases. 2009's 'Leisurely' EP introduced a new, darker side to Misanthrofeel's music that I found intriguing, and this seems to be a development on that seed of an idea. Quite possibly the darkest his music has ever been, the man behind the music continues to develop and refine his unique style of electronically induced progressive doom. However, while many things have been improved upon from the past, previously stronger elements that made works like 'Leisurely' so intriguing seem to have been left unattended.

The title '6.04' brings to mind John Cage's controversial composition (or lack thereof) '4.33,' which was characterized by it's artistic interpretation of utter silence. The avant-garde leanings are not so obvious here, but there's certainly been a forward thinking mindset at work here. While the fact that the music is made with no 'real' instruments (for those uninitiated with the work of Misanthrofeel, it is all performed by computer) generally left a sour taste in my mouth in the past, Misanthrofeel seems to make better use of this now. Instead of strictly trying to mimic real instruments, more otherwordly sounds are being used, that in places make the computer performance a unique advantage rather than a burden. There is still work to be done in terms of the musical execution, but I am seeing definite improvements over time!

The thing that made 'Leisurely' such a great song (and therefore, a good EP) was it's meticulous attention to steady build up and melodic flow. While spacy atmosphere is in no short stock here on '6.04,' there isn't much sense of progression to the songs here; they more or less both sound all too similar and you can tell where they are going from the first minute into each. However, that does not diminish their aesthetic, and if a gloomy, otherworldly feeling of ambience was what the creator intended, then I would consider this a step on the right path.

This one-man bedroom project from Russia have some releases readily available as free downloads for your pleasure. Go ahead and download.

The first composition is a heavy sludgy wall of sound with a melodic piece of keyboards, nee computer keyboard sampled keyboards on the top of that. The other composition is a lot more varied with a goth theme also coming in halfway through.

The problem is that this is pretty one dimentional music and samey. The music is not original at all. Treponem Pal did this 20 years ago, but with instruments. Godflesh, which continued as Jesu (listed in PA) also did the same and Napalm Death were into much of this themselves. What we get is a rerun of old ideas, twelve minutes and eight seconds long.

This is not a bad free download. It is a decent EP, but nothing more.

2 stars