Fugu Quintet ushers listeners into the depths of despair with their new single, “Existential Defeat,” a dark-jazz odyssey close to beauty and terror. Street: Kiyoko Hirano's audiovisually-rendered progressions merge orange-hued, sun burnt drones with grieved jazz; they unfold slowly.
Laced with experimental electronic textures, live saxophone, resonant bass, and the ghostly clangor of Tibetan bowls, “Existential Defeat” collates the burden of doubt and the release of art-making. The composition advances like a shadow gliding through dimly lit passageways, toggling between claustrophobic tension and trance-y release. Each note is on purpose, pushing up against the silence like a question unanswered.
The track is an artistic statement but a reflection of the band’s own grapple with existential defeat funneled into something linguistically charged. Instead of giving in to despair, Fugu Quintet translates it to sound, making a piece that is as jarring as it is hypnotic.
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