1. Bohren And Der Club Of Gore For Beginners
2. Bohren And Der Club Of Gore Youtube

Since 1992, Germany’s Bohren & der Club of Gore have made their own brand of dark, slow, jazz balladry for those who like their music 'uneventful.' Though its musicians came from various hardcore punk bands, their coming together resulted in the collective decision to explore a noir-ish, late-night lounge-jazz quartet sound, wrapped in spooky ambient music and doomy atmospherics. The band has been stubborn in its development on nine previous albums and three EPs. Bohren for Beginners is not a 'best-of,' but a carefully curated introductory selection -- and an exhaustive one. Its 17 selections are spread over two discs totaling nearly two-and-a-half hours. While one can't credit 'minimalism' proper in the Bohren sound, its snail-like pace and completely repetitive harmonic and rhythmic structures deliver the same deceptive notion of stasis. It's so slow that it seems oppressive at first.

Bohren And Der Club Of Gore For Beginners

It's difficult to comprehend where one tune ends and another begins. But as the individual tunes develop, everything falls into place; the listener is gradually opens to the group's carefully and seductively articulated modal ideas and then gets bound by them as if they were spells. One gets completely absorbed in the beauty of their darkness, loneliness, and isolation.

Bohren And Der Club Of Gore Youtube

Like the first Black Sabbath record, Bohren & der Club of Gore's sound is its own universe; the incessant bleakness delivers a twisted bliss not unlike the one Charles Baudelaire expressed in Les Fleur Du Mal. Melodies are sickly sweet and sad, their beauty wrought via spare saxophone melodies, elegiac Rhodes piano, plodding, minimal basslines, and eerie Mellotrons and synths.