Conor Fynes '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.