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Senmuth - Farhakote CD (album) cover

FARHAKOTE

Senmuth

 

Experimental/Post Metal

4.00 | 2 ratings

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octopus-4
Special Collaborator
RIO/Avant/Zeuhl,Neo & Post/Math Teams
4 stars In general before reviewing Senmuth's albums, specially those he defines "ethnic/ambient", I make some researches as knowing what the music is about helps appreciating it. With Farhakote neither Wikipedia has been able to help. I don't have any idea of what any track title and the album title mean, so let's speak of music only.

After an intro of 40 seconds of spacey dark noises, "Furahiat", the first real track "Ahteropol" has a strong melody backed by voices and whispers. The soundscape is powerful even though the tempo is slow. There's nothing really new respect to the previous 80 albums but the useless pitch changes which often affects the Senmuths' compositions are not present and even the usual darkness is not that dark so that this can effectively be considered an ambient track.

"Rohantia" is more electronic. Still very powerful in the sounds is a long sequence of chords tied together by an electronic flute and tribal percussions. Not bad also this. If it wasn't for the evily vocals in the background it would be suitable for a ducumentary. It doesn't seem to be Valery's voice, but the album doesn't contain any credit.

"Himatagany" is the first track on which we can really hear ambient music. Water (the effect is very similar to Edgar Froese's Aqua), birds, and an electronic soundscape with far eastern influences, than after 1 minute and a half the minor chords and the melody which follows have a strong Russian accent. And this is a good thing. This track can compete with Vangelis and with Tangerine Dream. First highlight.

"Astariora" is a return to the usual Raga-Metal. Not bad but you just have to put up any of the dozens albums released by Senmuth to fins a track of this kind. Just a bit more melodic than the usual. This 7 minutes track contains several different moments as a minisuite, so here and there, the raga is replaced by symphonic keyboards. At the and it's quite good.

Percussion and industrial noise open "Keranh", then it goes immediately ethnic. The tribal percussion remind to Brasil, but the melody is more Eastern. Apart of some disturbing pitch change it's also this an enjoyable track. Not the best one, of course.

"Oxartha" has a dark spacey intro but turns quickly into tribal. I have listened to a similar music in Thailand so i suspect that this is the area where a place called Oxharta can be found. Nothing lets us think to a city, anyway.

"Tuluma starts where "Oxartha" ends. A long synth chord with distorted harmonics, then organ prepare the entry of a pan flute (or something that sounds likely that). A bit tyoo powerful in the sounds to be called newage, but not too different. For Kitaro's fans.

"Esnariana" is a nice melodic closer wich doesn't go far and gives you the possibility to recap the whole album.

Not bad in general, very close to be an excellent addition for everybody, so that I round up my three and a half stars.

octopus-4 | 4/5 |

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