SAILING WITHOUT WIND

Founding BOHREN – members Thorsten Benning (drums) Robin Rodenberg (Bass) Reiner Henseleit (guitar), Morten Gass(guitar/piano) started playing music together in 1988 .

They were friends from school and they shared a common taste for all kinds of extreme music like Grindcore, Hardcore, Death- or Doom Metal.

Driven by the idea of a more unique style of music, they formed BOHREN (german word for drilling) in 1992 to play, as they called it, „doom ridden jazz music“.

1993 the band released a 7“ep for Suggestion Records.

1993 also saw the band expand their name to BOHREN & DER CLUB OF GORE, as a link to the dutch instrumental band GORE, which inspired BOHREN to play instrumental music.

1994 followed the longplayers GORE MOTEL and the double set MIDNIGHT RADIO (1995), both on Epistrophy Records, where BOHREN introduces its musical vision between slow jazz- ballads and doom-guitars.

1996 Reiner Henseleit left the band.

1997 Christoph Clöser, a cologne-based composer and musician (saxophone, piano, vibraphone) joined BOHREN & DER CLUB OF GORE and the band started performing regularly.

In the cast Benning, Clöser, Gass, Rodenberg the band plays hundreds of shows in more than 20 countries and released the following CDs/LPs:

SUNSET MISSION CD (2000)

“…a richly atmospheric journey through dark city streets, this was film noir jazz at it´s most gripping,slowly envelop pig the listeners in it´s sumptuous soundscapes and smoky, late night ambience.”

Label: WONDER

BLACK EARTH CD/DoLP (2002)

“Black Earth shares many similarities with Sunset Mission, but pushes the material in an even darker direction.”

Label: WONDER (Europe), IPECAC (USA, Canada)

GEISTERFAUST CD (2005)

“…where the band carries the principles of reduction and compression to extremes and at the same time it is a band- experiment in new „tone colours“ (Tuba, Bass-Trombone, Vibraphone, choir).

Label: WONDER

DOLORES CD/DoLP (2008)

“Dolores was where the band wholeheartedly embraced the minimalists ideals they had toyed with all along. Evidently this move paid off,with the quartet managing to evoke a vibrant cornucopia of emotions with some of their starkest music to date.”

Label: WONDER (Europe), IPECAC (USA, Canada)

MITLEID LADY CD/LP (2009)

The 10-Minutes track was Bohren`s contribution to the Latitude Serie of Southern Records.

In the style of John Peel`s legendary BBC – Sessions, the London-based label Southern Records started with the Latitude – Series a similar project – it invited bands to never-to-be repeated series of session –recordings in a limited edition, recorded and mixed in one day in Southern`s London Studios.

Label: SOUTHERN RECORDS

BEILEID CD (2011)

“…saw the Club of Gore recruiting the vocal talents of Mike Patton for an utterly bizarre yet strangely beautiful cover of the German hair metal band Warlock`s “Catch my Heart”, mutating the song into a melancholy jazzy ballad and stretching the notes out to dwell the spaces inbetween. ‘Beileid’ may be Bohren’s shortest record, but it packs no less of a punch, as the band continue to expand their sound and subtly branch out into new territory.”

Label: PIAS (Europe), IPECAC (USA, Canada)

PIANO NIGHTS CD/DoLP (2014)

“Piano Nights sounds like the loneliest jazz cafe in the world. Saxophones answers gentle piano chords with rich, poetic sentences, while the hiss of an open hi-hat hushes a room that`s near enough empty anyway – it is a beautiful record but a deeply troubled one, like eyes shimmering gently from behind tiny wells of tears.”

Label: PIAS (Europe), IPECAC (USA, Canada)

End of 2015 drummer Thorsten Benning quit the band after 25 years. Since 2016 BOHREN keep on working as a trio.

Club of Gore:

CHRISTOPH CLÖSER: Saxophones, Fender Rhodes, Piano, Vibraphone, Drums

MORTEN GASS: Organ, Mellotron, Piano, Baritone Guitar, Drums

ROBIN RODENBERG: Double Bass, Drums