(01.10.08) A companion “group” to Jason Köhnen and Giedon Kiers’ Kilimanjaro
Darkjazz Ensemble, the Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation is the
antithesis of the “jazz ensemble” concept. Wreathed in subterranean
drones and undulating tone waves, the Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation
is the sort of lounge act one would find playing in the lower circles
of Hell, down were time dilates to infinity and every action takes
epochs to complete. Doomjazz Future Corpses! is a nine track
descent into the sludgified substrata of melody. It is deep, dark,
and suffocating. It is to a radio friendly pop song as glacial drift
is to rapid climatic change.
Recorded live in The Netherlands during the arctic twilight of 2007,
the Doomjazz Future Corpses! session utilizes trombone, cello,
oscillator, an unknown number of FX plugins and patches, guitar, and
saxophone to fabricate a noisome environment of drifting spectral
ambience. The tracks, simply numbered in series, move in an
uninterrupted flow from a sparse landscape of tonal fog and decaying
delay to a claustrophobic prison of sonic terror. Each tone, each
note, each seismic rumble that drifts out of the assembled
instrumentation never truly vanishes from the room. They all end up
as phantasmal echoes that layer onto the music like strata of
historical ephemera. By the time Nina Hitz’s cello becomes possessed
by wild spirits in “Five,” each note is heavy with the reverb and echo
of the lugubrious tones that have come previously.
A splinter of light finds its way into the music during the latter
half of “Five,” and the oscillators respond with wild ululations.
Woodwind and guitar rise like revenauts from their respective graves,
and prowl about the sonic graveyard that has been erected, and the
saxophone tries to rise up, like some sort of reborn phoenix, and
chase the light. But, in the end, both vanish, disappearing into a
fog of distressed electronics that rolls out of the speakers like
black smoke.
The encore (if such a caustic miasma of dark noise could have an
“encore”) of “Eight” and “Nine” are twenty minutes of sub-sonic
rumblings and strained guitar noises, as if Justin Broadrick as
rushing through a Final show, compressing the runtime in half. The
finale is an ocean wash of sound that drowns the previous hour’s worth
of ghostly echoes. This world ends in water, and The Mount Fuji
Doomjazz Corporation plays out the funeral song for the drowned.
Doomjazz Future Corpses! is out now on Ad Noiseam. [Purchase
