With "Blank," BONGEN'S present their fourth album. The band from Cologne, Olpe, and Wuppertal creates German-language music somewhere between singer-songwriter pop and indie rock. The group, led by brothers Mario (vocals, guitar, keys) and Oliver Bongen (guitar), usually performs as a four-piece in the classic band format—with Theo Weber on drums and Jens Grebe on bass—but recently they've also increasingly performed as an unplugged duo. The new album reflects the latter. The instrumentation is largely reduced to acoustic guitar and piano.
"Damals überm Steinbruch," for example, consists exclusively of vocals and piano. The fact that some of the songs come across as "unfinished" was entirely intentional. They were meant to appear sketchy. Rough. Naked. "Blank," in other words.
After the multi-layered arrangement of the previous album »Fragebuch« the question this time was: What can we leave out?
A minimalism that reveals the core of the music: straightforward, earthy, at times gruff storytelling. The stories speak of failure in everyday life. Of survival in a consumer society. Of renewal and forgetting. And of the bright side of the apocalypse. There are memories of a village youth, a (fictional) family history spanning decades, and finally the comforting prospect of a chaise longue in a retirement home.
All pieces are united by a subtle glimpse into the depths of human nature, yet still discover a spark of hope somewhere. For example, in lines like this: "In the graveyard of opportunities, a light still burns." Or: "Heaven is a stain on my chest somewhere."
»Blank« is released under the distribution of Timezone Records as a CD, download and stream and is available on iTunes, Amazon, JPC and many other online shops.
1. New snow
2. Piece of paper
3. A storm is brewing
4. Hospital clown
5. Back then above the quarry
6. The Ghost of Alois Bongen
7. Against Nothingness
8. Dirty tones
9. Better than death
10. When I come to
11. Thanks for the crumbs
12. Chaise longue
