System Morgue – Feu (Zhelezobeton)

0

Obviously the artist enjoys a good book, as Feu is said to be inspired by the symbolist poetry of Charles Baudelaire (and by Ilya Masodov, a Russian writer whose as yet untranslated world is closed to me, but perhaps not to you). The cover art, on the other hand, might scare off its most appreciative potential audience, as the ouroborosian, revolution-eats-itself motif is a bit too stabby for the gently-delivered anti-message within.

System Morgue is a one-man proposition from Moscow, “Peter L.” running guitar and bass through a gamut of effects, producing a series of pleasing, ambient drones erring on the darker side of gray, as warm, grassy hillsides become clammy when the clouds role in. Where Baudelaire may have exercised more violence, Feu uses subtlety to convey a similar aura of ephemerality, of the beauty and consolation of the temporary.

It is gratifying to hear the physical presence of the guitar – strings tickled and vibrating on “Miroir de Vide” for example, and bass very fleshy on “Tranquille” – both as a reminder of the source material and as a joggle against the soporific effect of System Morgue´s satin smooth progression across four, long tracks – the fifth is a bit of a surprise ending, an epilogue different from what comes before but appropriate.

Stephen Fruitman

Share.

About Author

Born and raised in Toronto, Stephen Fruitman has been living in northern Sweden lo these past thirty years. Writing and lecturing about art and culture as an historian of ideas since the early nineties, his articles have appeared in an number of international publications. He is also a contributing editor at Igloo Magazine.

Leave A Reply