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11.03.2005

Bohren & der Club of Gore - Geisterfaust




They have done it again! Much slower! More minimalist! Taking no prisoners, on they march. Or perhaps we should say on they shuffle. Even less than less is more. Bohren has stripped down their sound to the bone without any compromise. A masterpiece! Here’s to enjoying the silence: all on your own.

Act: Bohren & Der Club Of Gore
Titel: Geisterfaust
Label: Wonder
Won 17
Format: full length CD
Packaging: high quality digipak / shrinked
File under: doom, jazz, dark, classic, ambient, minimal, instrumental
or even better: Unclassifiable

Tracklist:

1. Zeigefinger (index finger)
2. Daumen (thumb)
3. Ringfinger (ring finger)
4. Mittelfinger (middle finger)
5. Kleiner Finger (little finger)
   

 

        BOHREN & DER CLUB OF GORE – Geisterfaust  (“GHOST FIST”)

Where others suspect music comes to an end, that is the place Bohren & Der Club of Gore call home.
Born from the ashes of the hardcore band 7inch boots , this instrumental quartet from Cologne, Muelheim / Ruhr has gone to the other extreme. No longer loud, but quiet, less aggressive, more gentle. Clarity wins out over feedback. The first two Bohren & Der Club Of Gore albums, “Gore Motel“ and particularly the double CD “Midnight Radio“ , make the apparently impossible possible, transposing
easy listening sounds into doom rock darkness. Spooky beauty just before the music stops.

Five years on, and Bohren dragged their horror jazz into the finer glow of “Sunset Mission“ , the band’s most accessible tome to date. With a tenor sax leading the melody, something like a classical jazz arrangement emerged, opening the door to the untrained ear, as the songs race
forwards at the unprecedented pace of 44BPM.

“Black Earth“ , released on the band’s tenth anniversary, was a collection of Bohren’s previous convictions in all their diverse manifestations, from the crankiness of their debut through the menacing emptiness of “Midnight Radio“ to the compositional, aural elegance of “Sunset Mission“ . Thereafter follows a phase of slates wiped clean, conceptually speaking.
If not babies tossed out with bathwater, then kitchens radically gutted, sinks included. Bohren & Der Club of Gore revel in this newly won space, filling it with such exactitude that annotation is redundant.

Penurious ness with a purpose. “Geisterfaust” tramples the last remnants of the pop idiom firmly into the ground. Let’s reduce: A slow motion beat sneaks by, as rhythm lies hung, drawn and quartered on the floor. Harmonies fall like ripe fruit from their instruments.
Delicate and drawn out final flourishes are the order of the day. A middle finger stops the clock.  Any more minimal than this and we’d be onto La Monte Young.

What remains burns brighter than ever. Geisterfaust grasps the essence of Bohren’s music. “Sunset Mission“ horror jazz is the domain of the little finger. This last saxophone piece is a conciliatory ending to a brutally romantic album, whose dark beauty goes deeper
than ever. Solitary contentment.


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