Jürgen Bartsch, co-founder of the long-running and influential German underground metal band Bethlehem, has passed away. Current Bethlehem singer Yvonne "Onielar" Wilczynska revealed the news of Bartsch's death in an Instagram post, writing that he last a battle to an unspecified illness on Wednesday. In a note translated from German, Wilczynska says, "He died many times... But death was only temporary." As of now, Bartsch's cause of death and age are unreported.
Jürgen Bartsch shares a name with a notorious German serial killer, but that's reportedly his birth name, not a stage name. He started out as a member of Morbid Vision, a German thrash band that released a demo tape in 1991. That same year, Bartsch and his Morbid Vision bandmate Klaus Matton founded Bethlehem. Bartsch sang and played bass. Later on, he also did keyboards and electronics on Bethlehem records.
Bethlehem released their debut album Dark Metal in 1994, early in the history of black metal. They took that subgenre's sound, which was already plenty weird, to even weirder new places. Over the years, dozens of different members joined and left Bethlehem, but Jürgen Bartsch was a constant. Their sound took on elements of doom and goth-rock. They wrote long songs that were sometimes operatic in their anger, though Bartsch always gave off the impression that he didn't take his role too seriously.
Bethlehem released 10 albums, the most recent of which was 2022's The Gospel According To Alexander. Their song "Schuld Uns'res Knoch'rigen Faltpferd" appeared on the soundtrack of the 1997 Harmony Korine film Gummo. Their expressionistic sound became a big influence on the subgenre known as depressive suicidal black metal. Below, listen to some of their work.
