The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble

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Created on: 7 Feb 2007
Description:
Jazz In Pain.



The Kilimanjaro : extinct volcano in Northern Tanzania, the highest peak in Africa.
Darkjazz : mysterious stuff : black in shade, liveliness, spirit.
Ensemble : all the parts of a thing taken together, so that each part is considered only in relation to the whole.


The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble (TKDE) formed in 2000 as a project to compose new music for existing silent movies. Jason Köhnen and Gideon Kiers, both graduates of the Utrecht School of Arts, combined their audio and visual skills to reinterpret classic movies by F.W. Murnau (Nosferatu) and F. Langs (Metropolis).

In 2004 UK trombonist Hilary Jeffery and Swiss cellist Nina Hitz joined TKDE to record the self-titled debut album which was released on Planet Mu Records in May 2006. The ensuing tour saw Eelco Bosman and Paris based vocalist Charlotte Cegarra join, forming the Ensemble into a sextet. London based violinist Sadie Anderson joined in 2008 to supply the group with extra power on stage.

The Netherlands has been TKDE’s homebase since 2007, while members have moved closer to each other to make composing and producing easier.
Apart from the mothership which is TKDE, there is another entity; The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation is a live improv jazz/drone/doom sideproject consisting of TKDE members and a host of interchanging guest musicians.
Due to the vast possibilities within the band, the sound spectrum of TKDE is hard to capture within one specific composition. Moreover, the project will lean towards various styles depending on the respective members working together at a given time. A good mix between atmosphere and technique is always the strong basis for a TKDE composition.

Live TKDE fuse analog and digital as much as possible. Combining traditional instrumentations (comprising cello, trombone, violin, beats, guitar, bass and vocals) with existing and/or self-developed software, continuously blending and mutating, creating an organic and electronic performance, supported by visuals which add to and interact with the frequencies of said instruments.

Gideon Kiers: Beats / FX: Known for his abstract audiovisual work with Telcosystems . Worked with Jochem Paap (Speedy J), on the development of the 5.1 surround sound 'Umfeld' project. Runs the bi-annual Sonic Acts Festival in Paradiso Amsterdam.

Jason Köhnen: Double Bass / Fretless : Better known as hardcore electronics artist Bong-Ra. Recorded a session for John Peel in 2001. Released on labels such as Planet Mu, Cock Rock Disco and Sublight, remixed Venetian Snares ‘Rossz’ album and has played on nearly all the bigger festivals including Glastonbury 2007.

Hilary Jeffery: Trombone / Oscillator : Popular free-jazz/improv trombonist , performs regulary with Jimi Tenor, Patrick Pulsinger and Nick Bullen’s Black Galaxy. Released various albums with the post punk band Sand and solo.

Charlotte Cegarra: Vocal FX /Various instruments : French vocalist from a very musical background. Multi-instrumentalist, playing xylophone, flute, piano and rhodes. Graduated from the Paris College of Music, specializes in electronics.

Eelco Bosman: Guitar : Graduate of the Utrecht School of Arts, majoring in Sound Technology. Dutch guitarist, part of the Utrecht guitar-drone music scene in Utrecht. Currently working on 78 RPM, a heavy droning project.

Sadie Anderson: Violin : Violinist and multi-instrumentalist for Chrome Hoof, Kobayashi Ensemble, Blue Roses and many other projects.

Nina Hitz: Cello : Conservatory of Zurich cello graduate specialized in Barok music. Performs with various theater groups : Scapino Ballet Rotterdam, The Barton Workshop. Specializing in improv, film music and theater.

(http://www.tkde.net/tkdenet/About.html)

Here's the official Press-Release for "From The Stairwell":



THE KILIMANJARO DARKJAZZ ENSEMBLE are a project which has always been tied to films. Films are luxurious because they dispose of all these boring, unimportant, and trivial parts of our lives. This allows them to fully control our sensations, to put us in a very specific mood. Joy and sadness are occasionally OK, endless joy or endless sadness are clinical. But there is one sensation which can be persistent and unconditionally bearable at the same time. In the absence of a better alternative, let's call it "the mood". The mood is what TKDE are aiming at. The mood.

The mood is infinite and illimitable, but not uniform and unique. On "From The Stairwell", TKDE deliver eight new incarnations of the mood. Stairwells have always been intriguing. They appear to unavoidably lead you to your destination, but they only disclose the path bit by bit. What lies far ahead of you and far beyond you is hidden in the shadows. The stairwell could just as well be infinite. You climb up this murky stairwell, passing by many doors. Every door contains a variation of the mood, a short film, a song. You open the first one, "All Is One". The evaporating mist discloses a large and empty room with a barstool in the middle. On the barstool, a chanteuse from the roaring twenties. Her voice starts to trigger vibrations of the ground, the walls start spiralling around her, but she remains untouched in the eye of the storm. Second room, "Giallo". Sly guy, telling smile, nice suit. Walking down the streets in the dusk. The ambience starts to get out of phase, the guy stumbles in horror while blending with the surrounding to a brown soup. Fourth room. "Cocaine". Naked people with pig heads crawl on the floor, on the walls, on the ceiling. They try to hopelessly suck up the white dust which covers every single piece of this room and is constantly spit out by tubes coming out of the walls. Dissonant sounds accompany the work of this desperate hive. As the people manage to counteract the tubes, fragile melodies start to overpower the dissonances. Sixth room, "Cotard Delusion". Baby morphing into a black fluid morphing into an old man which turns his eyes inwards and finds his inside to be completely empty. The journey up the stairwell, down the stairwell, continues. The pictures fill your head and make you forget where you wanted to go in the first place.

"From The Stairwell" is a surprise and a logical step at the same time. It is a surprise because the songs are far less beat-driven in comparison to TKDE's earlier works, and even contain a few hopeful tints here and there. It is a logical step because in the end each song turns to have a very diverse dramaturgic flow. This could raise the conjecture that TKDE, initially started out to make music for existing and non-existing films, wanted to incorporate the audiovisual impression completely into songs, making the films superfluous. At times, "From The Stairwell" makes you think of 60's soundtracks, but the organic feeling of those is always interwoven with mechanical elements. Altogether, every single of the numerous details present in TKDE's new songs feels to be at the right place and you can either just dive into the mood or pick one of the many aspects and enjoy it on its own - be it Gideon Kiers' beats & fx, Jason Kˆhnen's bass & piano, Hilary Jeffery's trombone, Charlotte Cegarra's voice & piano, Eelco Bosman's guitar, Nina Hitz' cello, Sarah Anderson's violin, or - appearing as guest musicians - EirÌkur ”li ”lafsson's trumpet and Coen Kaldeway's saxophone & bass clarinet.

Website: http://www.tkde.net
Denovali: http://denovali.com/
Ad Noiseam: http://www.adnoiseam.net
Myspace: www.myspace.com/tkde
Discogs: http://www.discogs.com/artist/Kilimanjaro+Darkjazz+Ensemble,+The

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