“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.“
Jason Köhnen is one of those ridiculously prolific people with more bands and side-projects to their name than can easily be listed. His most famous project is probably The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble, one of the best known “dark jazz” groups that mixes trip hop, ambient and jazz, but in a career that has spanned three decades he has dabbled with countless flavours of metal, electronic and ambient music. If his music had more commercial appeal, he would probably be listed alongside the likes of Mike Patton and Steven Wilson. As things stand, Köhnen cuts a somewhat more enigmatic figure, and one rather gets the impression he prefers it that way.
As with any talented, prolific artist, it is fascinating to dig into Köhnen’s discography and see how his musical tastes have shifted with time. The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble’s earlier downtempo feel gradually gave way to a more free-flowing ambience, and once that project entered hibernation, Köhnen started drifting away from jazz influences and started to explore arabic scales, first with The Thing With Five Eyes and now with Mansur.
Mansur is a trio, made up of Köhnen, Hungarian vocalist Martina Horváth (probably best known for work with Thy Catafalque) and oud player Dimitry El Demerdashi (formerly of the mysterious drone/Tibetan chant ensemble Phurpa). As with many of Köhnen’s other projects, the music resists pigeonholing: the group don’t go much further than describing their music as “transcendental”. Above all else, the music is a kind of dark ambient-meets-trip hop. The use of oud and occasional arabic scales could tempt one into labelling this as arabic-hued music, but it’s important to place these elements in the context of more diverse instrumentation, which perhaps means it’s fairer to label it as darkwave in the vein of Dead Can Dance.
Pentatonic Ruins is Mansur’s fifth release, and is notionally an attempt at re-working the band’s previous work into more condensed tracks which push Horváth’s vocals to the forefront. The group have been careful to avoid saying that these are songs: while Horváth appears on most (although not all) tracks, the group has eschewed anything resembling verse-chorus-verse structures, and Horváth is never more than one of several elements working towards a greater purpose. Pentatonic Ruins feels noticeably less ambient than previous Mansur releases, and most tracks are anchored by large, swaggering downtempo beats. The instrumentation feels noticeably more diverse than on previous albums, although with a couple of exceptions El Demerdashi’s oud feels largely absent from the proceedings.
The result is an album that feels just as comfortable sitting alongside the late-90s output of Lamb, Massive Attack or The Dust Brothers as it does alongside Köhnen’s other projects. The delicious combination of downtempo beats, silky vocals and strings on “Nap” or “Neptun” feel like they could have been taken from a scene in a late-90s thriller in which the protagonist meets a contact in the Middle-East while investigating a shady arms deal. To some ears, this will all sound terribly dated, but those with a soft spot for trip hop will be in for a treat.
These trip hop sensibilities make an appearance on most tracks, but are often presented alongside extended, atmospheric sections. As its best, this combination gives us tracks like “Jupiter”: a mesmerising track which starts with slow, reverb-soaked vocals and gradually adds layers of percussion, sitar, violin and guitar. Mansur is on similarly masterful form in “Szaturnusz”. In the finest moments of Pentatonic Ruins, all the musical pieces slot together to create a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts.
There are similarly captivating moments to be found on most tracks. (The notable exception is “Föld”, an awkward track that sounds like a failed experiment.) However, many tracks suffer from off-balance pacing. A common fault is that elements spend a long time building, towards climaxes that feel underdeveloped. This is perhaps clearest on “Neptun”, which devotes much of its runtime to a delightful violin solo, giving way to an exceptionally tasteful downtempo beat… which fizzles out less than a minute before it starts. Similar pacing issues affect maybe half of the album: some great ideas aren’t given enough time to gestate, while other ideas outstay their welcome. Köhnen is most at home in the more free-form world of dark ambient, a genre that is generally much more forgiving when it comes to arrangements and runtime. The tighter world of vocal trip hop brings those weaknesses into the foreground.
Perhaps the biggest issue with this album is the treatment of Horváth’s vocals. Martina Horváth is clearly a talented, versatile singer, treating us to the beautiful harmonies of “Szaturnusz”, commanding siren songs of “Vénusz” and gentle crooning of “Neptun”. However, on the majority of tracks (but especially “Uránusz” and “Higany”), Horváth’s vocals are a bit too front-and-centre and grated on this reviewer’s ears. While by no means an expert, I am pretty certain that this is an issue with the mixing of these particular vocal tracks and not with Horváth’s vocals themselves. This might sound like a rather damning issue for what is ostensibly an album designed to highlight Horváth’s vocals, but as stated earlier, it’s actually quite rare for Horváth’s vocals to take centre stage.
From its seductive downtempo grooves to its intoxicating atmospherics, Pentatonic Ruins is an album bursting with brilliant ideas. Yet for all its strengths, Mansur has released a frustrating album. It has all the contents required for an amazing album, but the unpolished arrangements let it down. As things stand, I will be recommending Pentatonic Ruins as a great dark ambient-meets-trip hop album, but I feel like I could have been recommending it as a classic.
6/10
Pentatonic Ruins releases on the 6th June and can be pre-ordered here.