The Kilimanjaro DarkJazz Ensemble - I Forsee The Dark Ahead, If I Stay (2012)

Son pocas las personas que conocen a esta banda, y su etiquetaje siempre ha sido difícil de precisar, aunque su nombre y su música nunca podrá obviarse. Facu nos reseña un disco en vivo de una banda notable. Música inclasificable como su nombre lo indica, los TKDE de verdad que mezclan muchos estilos: ambient, jazz, electrónica, post rock y oscuridad en un muy lindo album si te gusta la experimentación, el juego de ambientes, el sonido de melancólicas trompetetas y muchas ganas de explorar por terrenos poco conocidos.

Artista: The Kilimanjaro DarkJazz Ensemble

Álbum: I Forsee The Dark Ahead, If I Stay
Año: 2012
Género: Downtempo / Ambient / Experimental / ¿Qué se yo? no tengo idea...
Duración: 60:59
Nacionalidad: Holanda

Lista de Temas:
01. Celladoor
02. Lobby
03. Mists of Krakatoa
04. Adaptation of the Koto Song
05. Symmetry Of 6's
06. The Nothing Changes/Senki Dala/Embers
07. Black Wings
08. Goya
09. The MacGuffin

Alineación:
- Jason Köhnen / Programación, Bajo
- Gideon Kiers / Programación
- Hilary Jeffery / Trompeta
- Nina Hitz / Chelo
- Charlotte Cegarra / Voz
- Eelco Bosman / Gitarras
- Sadie Anderson / Violín

Proyecto paralelo de músicos que conforman otras bandas (aunque ya lleva varios años funcionando), The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble (o TKDE, más fácil) es un colectivo que combina los mundos del estilo electro / jazz / ambient. Colchones electrónicos, bucles repetitivos, climas abstractos y sombrìos, la música del grupo permite viajes de ida y vuelta entre géneros sin dejar de lado el desarrollo de paisajes sonoros .

"I Forsee the Dark Ahead, If I Stay" es el primer álbum en vivo de la banda, una compilaciòn de 9 tracks grabados durante los años 2006 a 2011, registros de shows en Holanza, Eslovenia, Hungría, España y Polonia. Como dato al margen, les cuento que también los músicos tienen otro proyecto (el cual no he escuchado) llamado The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation. Facu nos incentivó para traerlos al blog y este es su comentario del disco...

A veces uno se olvida de que todas las cosas en esta vida pasan por algo, en esta era digital donde los milagros parecen cada vez mas lejanos, los puertas que crean enlaces entre la gente pueden aún hoy sacarnos una sonrisa y despertar a los sentidos.
Fue por uno de esos contactos que di con este disco, “para escuchar con la luz apagada.” me dijo, los kilimanjaro presentan un paisaje atmosferico muy trabajado, que varía de las tranquilas trancisiones tipicas del jazz, acompañadas de dulces aunque angustiantes femeninas, hasta pasajes atmosfericos llenos de suspenso, que obligan a mirar directo a los ojos de un abismo irresistible, acompañado de vientos de trompeta que brindan una cuota de sensualidad y acompañan el ritmo funebre de la banda.
Es dificil creer que las 9 pistas que componen este álbum sean en vivo, escucharlo da la sensación de que la banda esta ante un público inexistente, pero es una recopilación de las presentaciones en vivo de la banda por paíces como Paíces Bajos, Polonia, Hungría, España y Eslovenia entre 2006 y 2011.
Para cerrar, podríamos abrir un debate sobre a que bendito genero pertenece esta banda, pero aveces hay que permitirse aceptar que hay fenómenos, sucesos o generos, que escapan a todo etiqueta y que simplemente hay que dejarse maravillar con que simplemente existan.

Facu Riera

Espero que les guste porque este es un plato muy exótico y raro, música difìcil y no solamente por lo complicado que es conseguir sus discos. Vamos con los comentarios en inglés.

As I found out last November there is far more to Jason Köhnen than crude sarcastic humour and blistering metal-referencing "dance" music. Though Bong-Ra may well be his more familiar alias, The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble has been around for just as long. Initially conceived in 2000 with fellow Utrecht School of Arts graduate, Gideon Kiers, as a cinematic compositional project—writing new soundtracks for silent films like Nosferatu and Metropolis—by 2007 TKDE had grown into a seven-piece outfit, complete with live improv sibling The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation. Given away for free via their own digital label, I Forsee the Dark Ahead, If I Stay is an excellent introduction to those yet to discover this exceptional collective.
The album presents a series of tracks recorded from shows over the last five years, doubling as essentially a "best of" and insight into the live TKDE experience. Though piecing together components of previous concept albums, narrative is ultimately embedded in all of TKDE's work, which makes this as much a thematic soundtrack as Here Be Dragons or From the Stairwell. Köhnen admitted to disappearing into a "fantasy world" whenever he writes music—Bong-Ra stuff included—but it's through TKDE where the visual bedrock of his compositions are most potent. Each track alludes to its own melancholic tale, though what that is exactly is for you to decide. Here this is exemplified by the LP's sprawling closer, "The MacGuffin." Clocking in at over 15 minutes it depicts a saga in three parts, of a wandering figure—played by a wailing trumpet—grappling electronic demons across the pitchy moors of drone.
Despite the title, I Forsee the Dark Ahead, If I Stay isn't all bleak and full of dread. For the most part it is lyrical to achingly beautiful. "Black Wings" is jazz-infused post-rock bliss, again softly kissed with electronica to conjure a cross-pollination of say Explosions in The Sky with The Album Leaf—without the twinkles. "Adaptation of the Koto Song" is as upbeat as it gets with woozy keys that lead into a samba-like pattering of drums. Track six is in fact the assemblage of three songs, with "Senki Dala" borrowed from Venetian Snares' renowned Rossz Csillag Alatt Született album—the first time breakcore and classical music collided. And it is exactly this weaving of disparate threads, often in an unexpected and chaotic fashion, that make TKDE so fascinating. Compositions can—and do—traverse through multiple genres, as one would expect from a pooling of such eclectic backgrounds: the polar Bong-Ra and Telcosystems projects of its founders, coupled with free jazz, post-punk, drone, metal, funk, glam rock, and classical influences from its other five members. And yet, somehow, it works.
While TKDE are foremost a band, it's the little FX touches from Kiers and the group's vocalist Charlotte Cegarra that have tipped them into the electronic—albeit fiercely abstracted—arena, though really they are on an entire plane of their own. Take "Lobby," where Cegarra's smoky operatic voice has been synthesised into a ghoulishly plaintive cry that wafts amongst the instrumentation. Moves such as this litter the LP without ever taking away from its "organic" musicianship, nudging it instead into an eerie third dimension that is compellingly self-indulgent. But don't take my word for it; find out for yourself—it's free, what have you to lose?

Holly Dicker

Since first forming back in 2000 around the core duo of Jason Kohnen (best known for his breakcore-centred work as Bong-Ra) and Gideon Kiers with the intent of soundtracking silent films, Dutch outfit The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble have grown into a seven member collective that these days includes Chrome Hoof’s Sadie Anderson amongst its lineup. On the heels of last year’s ‘From The Stairwell’ collection, this latest download-only release ‘I Foresee The Dark Ahead If I Stay’ offers up TKDE’s first live album, and comes comprised of nine tracks taken from right throughout the group’s discography recorded on tour in various parts of Europe between 2006-2011. As a collection, it certainly represents the ideal introduction for those previously unfamiliar with TKDE, as well as one that arguably showcases the group’s enveloping, cinematic atmospheres in their ideal setting.
From the very outset there’s certainly an emphasis upon foreboding melancholy as hinted by the title, with ‘Celladoor’ drawing the curtain amidst ominous ebbing bass tones and chiming treated guitar chords, the background swell of wordless vocals and swirling instrumentation bringing things up out of the darkness, before ‘Lobby’ sees slow live drums and wandering bass providing the rhythmic propulsion for Sun-Ra-esque walls of brass and Charlotte Cegarra’s soaring vocal harmonies in what’s easily one of this collection’s standout highlights, and one that sits somewhere equally between the likes of the Constellation label and The Cinematic Orchestra’s opulent grace. Elsewhere, ‘Symmetry Of 6s’ spends its six minutes wandering from a dark ambient opening section consisting of ominous electronic whirs and spidery guitar murmurs into a rich sweep of melancholy jazz horns and weary-sounding live drums that’s easily the most mellow and post-rock tinged offering here, while 15 minute long closing track ‘The MacGuffin’ takes things out with a nightmarish wander out into howling, atonal jazz horns and growling, fuzzed-out bass distortion, the entire track seeming to slowly dissolve within its own corrosive atmosphere. A consistently impressive collection that manages to vividly document TKDE’s spectacular live show; you can download ‘I Foresee The Dark Ahead If I Stay’ for free from the TKDE site.

Chris Downton

On split since 2012 The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble now finally makes all long-time sold out releases available again on all formats. An act combining profound musical sensibilities, deeply emotional harmonies and an acute ear for genre inter-breeding, The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble placed itself and the confluent of dusty, gritty jazz and low-end doom-laden drones, and came up with a sound which is at the same time warm and dark, brooding and misty, cinematic and dynamic.
· The ensemble's music - mournful, mercurial and thoroughly spooked - has the lingering impact of the silent movies (Metropolis, Nosferatu) that served as their initial inspiration. (The Wire)
· The production is that much more spooky, rich, and atmospheric, and the song structure that much more purposeful and realized. It seems they have struck a perfect symmetry in the studio as a group, feeding off one another and performing cohesively. There is not a wasted moment to be heard. Mutations will slide its greasy fingers up your spine and linger there until you like it. (Pop Matters)
· The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble takes dub, jazz and electronica into new areas of shadowy cinematic enchantment (Rock-a-Rolla)
Currently founding member Jason Kohnen is paving the way with his new dark jazz project "The Thing With Five Eyes", continuing the mystical and occult universes people got to love from the "Here Be Dragons" period. His debut album is set to appear in 2017. In a parallel corner - founding member Gideon Kiers and trombonist Hilary Jeffery are conjuring up a twenty first century vision of spiritism with Inconsolable Ghost, working together with artists such as the cellist Anthea Caddy, the viola player Zsolt Sőrés (Ahad) and the filmmaker Makino Takashi. Vocalist Charlotte Cegarra recently started the Psychedelic-Pop duo Charlotte&Magon.
Together with "Bohren und der Club of Gore" and "The Dale Cooper Quartet", The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble through the years have succeeded in creating a brand new genre of music. Time to get absorbed again by this unique and fresh sound.

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