Don’t try to listen to Bong-Ra’s new album when you’re sick! It will only make you feel more feverish.
And just like that I’ve thrown away my whole first draft of this review, which was originally supposed to go online a little over a week ago, on schedule with the album’s release. I wouldn’t say that I’ve been serioulsy ill, but it was enough to knock me out for one weekend. During the week I still felt a bit under the weather, fit enough to go to work, but too mentally exhausted afterwards for any creative writing. And well, there are also certain kinds of music which are easier compromised by a blocked nose and headaches than others.
So for a while I wasn’t even sure if I actually liked this record. Which is bad, because we don’t do negativity clickbait on VoS, but only review what we actually appreciate. Luckily, I found out that a) I just needed to wait a couple of days until I felt receptive enough again and b) it was for sure not the music that sucked, but rather what I had written about it until then.
I had started with a way too long introduction about two kinds of hyper-productive recording artists: those who establish a new band for every new direction they’re dipping their toes in, and those who just release everything under the banner of their main project. I argued that Jason Köhnen (The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation, Celestial Season, The Answer Lies In The Black Void and many more) was somehow both. Hell, I even crammed in a whole excursive paragraph about one of Köhnen’s most obvious role models as a prime example of the artists I was reffering to: Justin Broadrick has channeled his huge catalogue of ideas into various easily distinguishable projects, establishing him as an influential key figure in various genres like Industrial/Post-Metal (Godflesh), Shoegaze (Jesu), Electronic (Techno Animal, JK Flesh) or Ambient/Drone (Final).
Jason Köhnen has followed a quite similar approach, earning him a reputation as an innovator in such diverse styles as Breakcore, Doom Metal and what he prefers to call Darkjazz. Just like Broadricks’s bands and solo projects all of Jason Köhnen’s outlets have their own individual parameters, but also multiple instances of proximity and overlapping between them. There are certain Jesu releases which sound very close to Godflesh, and so there are for example instances when the groundbreaking Doomjazz/Electronics mixture of The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble is hardly distinguishable from The Lovecraft Sextet, where he juxtaposes the Darkjazz premise with alternating concepts like Horror scores, 80’s Pop aesthetics, Opera or Black Metal.
And now while I’m practically repeating that whole annoying sermon so you’re probably – and rightfully - getting impatient, asking yourself where I am actually going with this. How is Jason Köhnen somehow both and how does that matter?
The answer lies in the suprisingly radical transformation of his long-term solo project Bong-Ra five years ago with the album Antediluvian, when after twenty years of Jungle beats, Noise, Power Electronics, HipHop and other shenanigans the name suddenly stood for an ultra-heavy sludgy Doom-Metal duo of Köhnen and long-time Merzbow cooperator Bálazs Pándi on drums. Why not release this music under another moniker, especially since the Köhnen Pándi Duo already existed? Anyhow, the following Meditations added a strong Jazz flavour to the heaviness with former guest saxophonist Colin Webster as part of the line-up, as well as Köhnen’s partner in his Experimental Folk trio Mansur, Dmitry el Demerdashi on oud.
And then Bong-Ra shapeshifted once again, signed with Debemur Morti Productions - and it all began to make sense, as the Industrial Metal frenzy of Black Noise re-introduced electronic breakbeats, and the following dystopian remix and cover album To Mega Panopticon brought the past and present together even closer.
At that point I actually thought this was as full circle as it could get, but enter Esoterik and wow, how wrong I was! While on first listen there are worlds and zero connections between releases like say Bikini Bandits, Kill! Kill! Kill! and this new album, this is undoubtly the result of a multi-faceted evolution, bringing together various of its branches, not only the harsh beats, vocals, samples and Industrial Metal guitars, but also the Arabisms, mystical tones and pure Doomjazz bliss as Colin Webster’s saxophone returns in its fullest glory.
Close brutality and far away beauty constantly go hand in hand on these five tracks of colossal Egyptian Space Jesus lore. There are few moments in which the layers of riffs, synths, beats, vocals and whatever else is happening aren’t dazzling like an inconceivable cosmic power or at least a disturbing fever dream.
While I don’t think Esoterik is Bong-Ra’s most atmospheric work to date (the world-spanning grandeur of Antediluvian and the dynamic jazzy depth of Meditations still surpass it in this regard) and maybe not even their best release on Debemur Morti (the Godflesh and Ministry worship of Black Noise is hard to beat), there’s certainly one superlative which just has to be attributed to Esoterik: In a way that very much befits label mates of Blut Aus Nord this clearly is the most Bong-Ra album. Overwhelming, but also rewarding – at least when you’re healthy enough to unleash it upon yourself.
