"If ever there was a project that demonstrates the lasting impact that a dedication to art and music can have, then 6.05 seems a pretty exemplary illustration."
About a year and a half ago I reviewed Eletun Selona’s Infinita Series, the LP that signalled the closure of the sewer series label after Eletun’s passing in 2024. Then, there was a corner of me that felt apprehensive before hearing the music. I didn’t want to write something disingenuous that celebrated a record because of the tragic circumstances surrounding it.
Thankfully, those fears were unfounded. And this time around, having experienced the quality of Infinita Series, having understood that long-time friend and collaborator Martinou (who doesn’t seem to be able to miss at the moment) was working posthumously with Eletun, caring for and completing collaborative projects in various states of completion, and having recognised the fact that the release was coming out on St. Odes, a label that has been responsible for some of the best deep techno, ambient and IDM anywhere over the last year, it’s an understatement to say that I knew the project was in safe hands.
Upon listening, it doesn’t take long to recognise that 6.05, in all its yearning, turning, meticulous finery is going to be finding its way onto an awful lot of end of year lists, and does complete justice to the love that’s been poured into its production and fine tuning.
That attention to detail is evident from the opener. 163-224 is an understated submersion into the sonic world of 6.05, all dark, droney pads, an offbeat kick on the lower echelons of the Hz ladder, crisp, rattling shakers and distorted snares. This trip into shadowy psychedelia gathers momentum at the halfway(ish) point when that kick starts thumping at a steady 4/4, a really nice exercise in restraint to establish the album’s atmosphere.
4.4 opens with a little more action and, appropriately, with an instantly established 4/4 kick. Atop this we find a smattering of washing, hissing hats and feedback, as an urgent, pulsing synth line starts to build in the periphery. A track that snakes around ankles in the dark, seething and writhing, before it’s lifted by tubular bell tones, a little golden glow of zen against the grainy darkness, and those majestic choral pads that now feel ubiquitous with Martinou.
The B side turns up the murk a little, as 17.16 introduces its arrival with a ripping little synth line, a sort of breakbeaty kick and more of those hissing hats and textures. Then there’s that ominous shadow rising from down in the void somewhere in the shape of a low, growling bass, as a few gunmetal grey pads drift down from heavy skies. A deep, heady, and really nicely sequenced trip this one.
3.3 is a similar vibe but with a little more colour injected into that greyscale panorama established on the previous track. Centre stage is taken by a sawing synth line that begins quietly shouting into the oncoming blizzard of percussion, mutating over time into a warped, acid-drenched monster that squirms out of the speakers, soothed only by more of those beautiful chord progressions that drift on overhead.
Opening the second disc is the slow, dark builder of 5.2, – spooky, loopy pads, shattering rides trailing misty arcs of reverb, and a chanting synth line – intermittently lit by flashes of flaring percs. This is followed by personal highlight, 11.1, an absolute masterclass in harmonic layering, chord progression and soft world building, all offset by driving kicks and skittering rhythms. One built for taking heads on a trip to the clouds, one for hugging.
The final side of the album is kicked off by 2.35.1, a track which attracted serious attention upon its appearance in Martinou’s live set at Kune. That’s no surprise, what with the striking vocal samples, deep groove and hypnotic sequencing – more escapism offered up by the duo here.
There’s no denying that, for the most part, 6.05 is a pretty dark album, and occupies this terrain for the vast majority of its runtime. It was Roland Barthes who said that the “grain is the body in the voice as it sings” – that every piece of music carries an irreducible trace of the person who made it, that we as listeners don’t merely interact with sound, but with a trace of another human presence.
It seems apt then, that what is possibly the final piece of music to be released by Eletun Selona ends on a joyful note after all that darkness. N16HTM4R3 is an uplifting, hopeful closer, and while it’s easy to draw the parallels between the lyrics of the track and the freedom I hope Eletun has found from his own personal demons, the track can also be read as expressing another side of Eletun’s persona, the light found within its creator, despite his evident battles. The hands in the air euphoria, the moments where everything seems right with the world.
Thanks to Martinou, Eletun will be known in this particularly intimate, private sense by hundreds who sit and listen to his work in their private homes. By thousands hugging, crying or dancing to his records together in forests, by lakes or in meadows across the globe. An impression of the darkness in his life, as well as the beauty. If ever there was a project that demonstrates the lasting impact that a dedication to art and music can have, then 6.05 seems a pretty exemplary illustration of that.
‘6.05’ is out now via St. Odes. Buy a vinyl copy from Inverted Audio Record Store.
TRACKLIST
A1. 163-224
A2. 4.4
B1. 17.16
B2. 3.3
C1. 5.2
C2. 11.1
D1. 2.35.1
D2. N16HTM4R3
