Niedziela 22 Kwi 2007, 5:56
Next song is about … a night … and about … a wolf … … it's called … nightwolf, that's the kind of dry humor you could hear Saturday night in Vooruit Ghent during the Timefestival.
Normally when I'm in the concerthall looking at a stage that's as dark as a new-moon night only lit by some twinkeling stars and embellished with an enlightened skull covering the bassdrum, while four German performers enter the stage dressed in black I'm there for a gothic concert.
In this case Bohren & der Club of Gore would bring us slow-jazz, they call it 'horror-jazz'. They're definitely not sailing under false colours. As a post-rock fan I sometimes was thinking about 65daysofstatic, but playing about 100 times slower and with a jazzy saxophone. We 'saw' four musicians: drums, double-bass, keyboards/sax and keyboards/guitar only lit by a flashlight above their bald heads during the whole concert. I read they have a background in death metal, maybe that's the reason why the guitar/keyboard player was slow-headbanging at the rhythm of his tunes. When playing piano we only noticed the top of his head, I suppose he was searching the right key to hit (one key every 5 seconds) in the barely-lit corner he was sitting :-)
Slow jazz ballads, no vocals, a sax that whispers and floates above piano lines. No songs under six minutes. Lonely notes floating isolated in the dark room. When will we hear the next one?
The audience immediately adjusted to this film noir soundscape. It's music to move out to the wide-open fields at night. Lie down, plug your iPod in and look at the stars or just close your eyes. So was the first five metres of the concerthall floor covered with people lying and listening, only to raise at the end of a song to applause. Yes, they were still awake! It's rather unusual to watch a performance with an audience so quiet! A big difference wth the ballroom jazz two days earlier in the Vooruit.
Perhaps they met one night, in the shade of trees, under the light of the darkest moon as a rising storm's wind carried the sound of howling wolves and ravens flying into the night. (Bohren)