Sokushinbutsu Project – 即身仏
Industrial Ölocaust Recordings is out with a new and mysterious release+project called the Sokushinbutsu Project. The idea was born from an idea of Massimo Mascheroni and Enrico Ponzoni, and both members come from another highly productive and obscure industrial-noise act called ORDZ. The release is out on cassette and pro-CD-R, lovely textured paper being used here!
So this idea/concept thing... what is it about then?. The booklet tells you the entire story/idea. Here goes :
The term Sokushinbutsu refers to a Buddhist religious ritual practiced from the 12th century until the early 1990s by various Japanese monks who, through a long and painful mental, physical, and food preparation, culminated in death voluntarily predisposed their body to a process of self-mummification. The path of self-mummification in life through asceticism follows precise phases, lasting a thousand or more days each.
There you go! The process itself has 4 stages, and each track on this album represents those 4 stages.
The first phase/track called Holy Mountains is about how the monk practices a series of mortifications on himself over a period of several years. He also progressively eliminates the basic foods of the Japanese diet. The track itself is built around some heavy distorted ceremoniously-looped sounds, various echoed sound effects randomly builts up a certain tension, waterdrops from a cave, ritualistic electronic rhythms. Interesting ritualistic noise with an esoteric psychedelic twist. So far so good, really good!
The second phase is called Tree-eating. Here the monk begins to eat, but not normal food. It involves the intake of bark, chestnuts, acorns, pine needles, and sometimes crystals or stones. At the end of this, the participant will take a toxic tea based on a poisonous plant, making him vomit pretty much. All this will eliminate all fat in the body while dehydrating the body and shrinking the organs. This track moves further into ritual music and away from the noise of the former track. A sampled and looped human voice can be heard here, at the same time a metallic-bell sound adds more mystery to the track. Windy and flanged sound effects move through your stomach while an eerie almost breathing sound can be felt...and heard. While you are trying to catch your breath, throbbing and torturous effects are added later on while intense and painful screaming makes your skin crawl. Again, another great track!
The third phase is simply called Deep Meditation. Which involves the monk returning to the temple of worship to meditate in the crypt below the temple. He is locked tight inside a dark room, where he will take his last breath through a tube that is inserted into a wall, he will do this while meditating in a lotus position. While this is happening, the monk will sound a bell to tell the other monks that he is not dead yet. When the bell is silenced, he will offcourse... be dead. Eerie and spooky noise-ambient music, which reminds me slightly of the early recordings with Ain Soph and Lyke Wake. Love the way distorted noise is being treated here, somehow they have managed to capture the mood and sound of someone literally trying to catch and hold their breath. Death is imminent and expressed in this track, there is no question about that!
The fourth and last phase is called Self-mummification. Which is after another 1000 days, the disciples of the temple will open the crypt. If the body is intact, the ascetic has become a mummy. He will then be perfumed and dressed in rich sacred vestments and enclosed in a tabernacle. HE is a sokushinbutsu, an Enlightened one in one´s living body. Or in other words, a higher being/living mummy existing somewhere between the realm of the living and the dead. This track involves a distorted sound that sounds like someone screaming in water, looped noises, psychedelic and metallic sound-textures, and a humming bass drone. Horrifying and seductive at the same time here!
I am intaking a LOONG inhale of air here... while I scoop my hair back, and stretching my backside. That was a seriously heavy and deep treatment of the senses, and what an adventurous journey it was! There is no doubt that these guys knew which sounds to use to clearly illustrate the pain of performing this ancient ritual. It´s a scary album without a doubt, as scary as SPK´s classic Leichenshrei album! Intense beyond reason!...
