In a prompt follow-up to THE LOVECRAFT SEXTET‘s DMP debut, “Miserere“, creative mastermind Jason Köhnen (BONG-RA, MANSUR, ex-THE KILIMANJARO DARKJAZZ ENSEMBLE) continues to explore the deepest abysses of Darkjazz on a new 7” EP.
“Black†White” features two shadowed and enigmatic tracks influenced by the spiritual free Jazz of Albert Ayler and Pharoah Sanders, the avant-Black Metal of BEHERIT, the Noise/Jazz/Death Metal supergroup PAINKILLER and the early work of Grindcore spearheads NAPALM DEATH.
Check the trailer below!
Jason narrates the idea behind “Black†White“:
“Albert Ayler’s song ‘Ghosts‘ included the first blast beats I heard in Jazz. For me there is a lot of connection between free Jazz and Black Metal: the chaos, speed and noise. I hear a clear musical relationship between free Jazz, Black Metal and early Grindcore as well – they are all raw and primitive sounding. PAINKILLER is a perfect mix of these worlds. In this group, Mick Harris and John Zorn’s universes collide. The title “Black†White” in turn is based upon the hermetic principle of polarity. In this case it can also be seen as political, creative and/or philosophical statement. Polarities are a mental construct and are basically two extremes of the same concept. In this case, these two extreme genres are actually more connected in their sonic characteristics than they might seem at first glance. Polarization is more often used to divide (i.e. the well-known ‘divide and conquer’ concept), but I decided here to use it as a tool for unification.“
“Black†White” will be released via Debemur Morti Productions on March 10th. Pre-orders for the limited 7” EP start on February 3rd.
Tracklist:
01. Black
02. White
THE LOVECRAFT SEXTET is one of the many projects from multi-instrumentalist Jason Köhnen. Renowned for his previous projects BONG-RA or THE KILIMANJARO DARKJAZZ ENSEMBLE and THE MOUNT FUJI DOOMJAZZ CORPORATION.
Köhnen coined the term “Darkjazz” back in 1999 when he composed a track entitled ‘Darkjazz‘ for his 2001 “Darkbreaks” EP. From that point embarking on a long musical journey into dark experimentations with the jazz sound palette in combination with a plethora of genres.
THE LOVECRAFT SEXTET was evoked after a void appeared with the ending of his other Darkjazz outlets, firstly TKDE and TMFDJC and then the short lived THE THING WITH FIVE EYES project which saw Köhnen‘s first flirtations with Arabic scales and instruments, progressively transforming into his MANSUR project together with ex-PHURPA member Dmitry El Demerdashi and avantgarde metal THY CATAFALQUE vocalist Martina Hórvath.
Köhnen‘s approach to his releases with THE LOVECRAFT SEXTET are to open the spectrum of Darkjazz in all its wonderful and mysterious facets. Seeing each release as a script and soundtrack to a different movie, setting a different pace and atmosphere and playing with unorthodox climaxes and atmospheres. The projects hosts a list of dedicated guest musicians, who all participate as the leading actors in these scripts, all playing a crucial role in the soundtracks of these non-existing movies.
THE LOVECRAFT SEXTET releases albums on Denovali Records and Debemur Morti Productions, in a way where the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde part of this project comes to its best and most creative fruition.
Apart from the conceptual audio releases, THE LOVECRAFT SEXTET also navigates through the multi-disciplinary arts. The “In Memoriam” release saw a first in a series of short stories and audiobooks combined with an album. Future releases will see more art disciplines combined as a release.