This record was described to me a little over a year ago as "Bong-Ra's post rock project" which is just a lazy way to say that this sounds nothing like Bong-Ra and a little more like records that combine traditional instruments and sampled beats to build brooding atmospheres. Atmosphere is what the Kilimanjaro Darkjazz ensemble specializes in, and this self-titled album is is full of richly composed themes. There are a few moments when breakbeat mechanics threaten to take over from the long droning backgrounds and bits of strings and saxophones, but thankfully the record never tries to play the line between dance music and mood music.
Bong-Ra can release a new mashup breakcore record every month if he wants to, so it's nice to hear him spending time with tunes that are more of a stretch and more rooted in organically evolving textures. The record takes a few odd detours like a screaming blast of noise that envelopes the melody of one song, and some ambient passages that bridge more fully fleshed out tracks, but I imagine that down the road, this is the Bong-Ra related record I'll pull out more often than any others because it throws genre rules to the wind and winds up working in unexpected ways.
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