Review (Six Echoes Of A Rain)

EugeneKha is Evgenij V. Kharitonov, a poet, musician, writer, sound and visual artist from Moscow. His music can be found on a number of netlabels. He describes this release as a mini-album, and indeed it clocks in at exactly twenty minutes.
“First Echo of a Rain” opens with thunder and heavy rainfall. A pulsing synth begins, moving in and out of phase, and is overlaid with the sound of birdsong. A slightly glitchy pad moves in, and naive piano notes lie lightly above the pad. Odd, seemingly random discordant sounds appear from time to time, particularly towards the end of the track, and these peal off to the left and right. We finish with rain and thunder, and distant voices.
The second track, “Anna August” has almost mellotron-like chords with high-pitched, Berlin style sequences burbling to and fro. On the shortest track here, “Legrand’s Umbrella”, the rain returns, underpinned by long pads and a Vangelis-style synth lead. It’s quite moving, though I’d like to hear a longer version of the piece without the rainfall.
There’s an oriental flavour to “Morning of the Moon”. A simple melody calls out in plucked tones, first high, then duelling between high and low, above a long drawn-out chord. A single burst of what sounds like a shakuhachi finishes this brief taste of the orient.
“September Rain” starts by completely immersing us in a downpour, though this fades quickly to a pattern of liquid rhythm with long, new age chords. We end the track once again drenched.
The closer, “Sixth Echo of a Rain”, begins with African-style percussion, and those familiar naive piano notes reappear, albeit with a different melody. Suddenly the listener is lost in a dervish of rotating sounds. Noise whirls around quickly and then opens out to bird calls. The rain has ended at last.

Baxter Tocher // EarTickles. 2012. May,31