One of Germany’s most fabled jazz exports, Bohren & der Club of Gore, have had quite an interesting journey leading up to where they are now. The band started up in the early ‘90s as an experimental project of former members of a few different German hardcore bands. The original concept behind Bohren was to create a mix of hardcore, jazz and ambient sounds. This was an idea that eventually led the band to fame in the mid-‘90s behind the strength of a couple groundbreaking albums, Gore Hotel and Midnight Radio. Once the band had put their name on the map though, by all but creating an entirely new genre of music, Bohren’s guitarist left the band and was replaced by a saxophonist, thus making the quartet’s sound a slightly more traditional one from there on out. Still, Bohren & der Club of Gore are far from elevator music. The band still creates a slow, plodding brand of ambient jazz that can be both sharp and angular and cool and calming. Dolores, which is the band’s sixth studio album, is a terrific introduction to this odd but approachable style of jazz.
One of the most astonishing things that occurred to me while listening to Dolores was how absolutely slow the songs moved along. I wasn’t particularly familiar with the sound of Bohren before listening to Dolores and I fully expected the tempo to eventually rise and a requisite saxophone solo to blaze in front of a typical drum ride pattern, this never occurred. Instead, Dolores never gets in a hurry. The songs move along at their own leisure, allowing the listener to soak in every instrument, every note, and every movement. For a band that once considered themselves “hardcore jazz,” the songs here are only heavy or harsh in the atmospheres they build rather than the instruments that drive them.
The typical song on Dolores will glide along on the merit of dueling pianos, a steady diet of double bass and soft, indiscernible drumming. Only at opportune times does the splendid sound of the sax make its way into the mix, such as on the five minute long “Unkerich” which plays itself closer to mainstream jazz than any other song on the disc. While listening to the album, you could at first get the impression that this is nothing more than cool jazz, a nice little combination of jazz instruments and sounds put together so that you can have background music while reading your favorite book. The main difference between Bohren’s sound and the music that haunts unsuspecting coffee shops though, is the mood that the music sets. While cool jazz is generally easily digestible fluff, Bohren creates dark and brooding songs that unfold like horror flicks. The songs on Dolores put you in generally uncomfortable spots, like the music that is played behind tense moments in film, except Bohren writes music with plot, climax and resolution leaving the listener on edge despite how slowly the compositions get to their respective finish. In this sense, Bohren’s brand of ambient jazz becomes heavier than any blazing electric guitars could ever be.
Bohren & der Club of Gore are not for everyone. It takes an ear for jazz to truly appreciate what these German’s are trying to accomplish. Even a big jazz fan like myself though, found the unfolding of the songs a little tedious at times. By the time Dolores’ ten songs were up the disc also felt a little bloated, thought the terrific album closer “Welten,” with it’s wailing saxophone piercing though three minutes worth of quite ambience like Mike Myers jumping out from behind a dark closet, helped make up for it. All in all Dolores is a dark, moody piece of ambient jazz that should find itself on the shelf of any jazz fan.
"Dolores" is on sale November 4, 2008 from PIAS Recordings.
