Bohren & Der Club Of Gore

2 weeks into the new year and with no new music to be giddy over I'm going in full reverse and sulking in nostalgia with what I feel is the darkest album I own and have heard to date: I present to you, again: Black Earth.



So chill, yet so chilling. I came across this in late 2004 from a friend from an old band on the subject of minimalist albums/artists. Being dude was a fan of Ipecac Records and the like he was selling me on it, and by the 3rd track I was hooked. It's really almost indescribable how dark this gets. If you can make it through to the end you feel like your soul was crushed. I imagine this as the soundtrack to a bunch of Stephen King novels or the occasional Von Trier flick.

Musically speaking, I fucking LOVE how quiet everything is...I mean it's supposed to be, but stuff like the drumming being done so slowly and so quietly, all the brushing and reverberating cymbals, and how you can hear the sax players' fingering and just the sound of wind blowing against the reed. So quiet it's positively maddening. Their other works before and after haven't really lived up to the hype this gets (though i'm curious for this new album in February), although Sunset Mission is a good album too, but...fuck man, this is so dark. It's funny to read that dudes in extreme metal like Ulcerate praise this album, but it's well worth the praise when you aim to set a bleak mood in your music. People compare it to doom when hearing the speed of it, but really the tone just says black metal to me.

Random sidenote: while deciphering the German track listing, I came across this: http://ackuna.com/badtranslator