P:lot – Mein Name ist

P:lot (Pilot) from Saarland is an indie rock band that was initially a studio-only project founded in 1997. Their first album titled Debut was released in 2004 on the Goldene Zeiten label, but they soon grew uncomfortable with the constraints set by the label and decided to work independently from there on with no outside management or PR help whatsoever. It took four years, but P:lot’s second album Mein Name ist was finally released last autumn, preceded by the single Zeit zu leben. It’s just awesome to see such a young band that hasn’t really had the time to properly establish itself in the music industry fare so well doing precisely what they want to be doing, and completely on their own terms!

P:lot’s BuViSoCo 2009 entry song is the title track from their current album, Mein Name ist. It’s an emotional and gently rocking indie rock piece, much in the vein of bands like Coldplay or Kent. To promote their song for the contest, the band’s wicked DIY spirit has produced a single (available on Amazon.de) and a beautiful music video, viewable here. Don’t forget to check out some more of their songs on P:lot’s MySpace, you can find the full album on Amazon.de as well.

Marteria – Zum König geboren

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern’s pride Marteria started his rapping career at the age of 18 after a successful stint in modeling business. He immediately signed a record deal in 2000 with the label Punchline, but the release of his debut album failed as the firm went bankrupt. After that, he created his mysterious high-pitched alter ego Marsimoto, under which name the first album Halloziehnation was released in 2006. Next followed the first actual Marteria-album Base Ventura, and last year saw the release of Marsimoto’s second and latest album, Zu zweit allein. I for one am thankful that Marteria decided to enter this year’s Bundesvision as the more serious rapper Marteria and not as the annoying, Alvin and the Chipmunks-resembling Marsimoto.

Marteria’s entry song Zum König geboren is Deutschrap to the core: plenty of tough guy attitude, albeit just slightly tongue in cheek. You can catch the stylishly executed video here, or listen to some snippets of the work Marteria has done with other rappers on his MySpace. Marsimoto’s MySpace has amply samples of the other side of the rapper’s work. You can find the Zum König geboren single, Marsimoto’s Zu zweit allein and Marteria’s Base Ventura all on Amazon.de.

Cassandra Steen - Darum leben wir

Baden-Württemberg’s representative Cassandra Steen made her a name as part of the pop, soul and R&B trio Glashaus, which scored a number of critically and commercially successful albums and singles. Alongside Glashaus, she has started a solo career and sung backgrounds for numerous big names in the R&B and rap scene. Her debut solo album was released as far back as in 2003, but this year, she’s gearing up for a second round with the brand new album Darum leben wir. For me, the best part about Steen’s music is definitely the fact that she sings entirely in German. It takes special guts to do your own thing in a widely popular genre that is absolutely dominated by American, English-singing artists.

The artist’s BuViSoCo song is the title track from her upcoming second solo record. Darum leben wir is a melancholy and well-produced R&B ballad – I’m sure if she happened to be from the USA and sang in English, Steen would probably be known all around the world by now. You can see her music video here and catch some more snippets from the Darum leben wir album on her MySpace. Amazon.de has the single up for sale and the full-length (released on February 20th) up for preorders.

Claudia Koreck - I wui dass du woasst

Claudia Koreck, singing in her native Bavarian dialect, is a young singer who started playing music when she was just twelve years old. Nine years pass, and suddenly in 2007 her song Fliang gains huge popularity when played in the Bavarian radio station Bayern 3, enabling her debut release Fliang to easily achieve #1 in the Bavarian overall sales charts. A second album, titled Barfuaß um die Welt, full of her trademark bluesy pop-folk will be released on the same day as the Bundesvision Song Contest is held, February 13th. Singing in a dialect of any kind is definitely a rarity, so it’ll be interesting to see how the rest of Germany is going to take Claudia!

One way Claudia Koreck’s entry song I wui dass du woasst stands out from the other BuViSoCo songs in that there’s neither an official music video nor has a single been published to promote it. However, you can see Claudia and her band perform the whole song live on Stefan Raab’s TV show where he introduces the artists. The artist’s MySpace has snippets of five tracks from both her upcoming full-length as well as from the first one. You can find the album on Amazon.de for preorder.

The Irish-themed speedfolk band Fiddler’s Green will be releasing their new album Sports Day At Killaloe this January on the 9th. The standard album alone tops the scales with 19 new songs, playing for well over an hour, but there will also be a limited edition that packs in even more content onto a second disc. If you’re lucky enough to snag one of those limited copies, you’ll get another 9 acoustic versions plus a music video Fiddler’s Green just filmed last week. The exact tracklistings for the album hasn’t been released yet.

Album pre-listening
Fiddler’s Green is uploading one new song from the album to their MySpace page every week. But once the week is over, it will be removed and replaced with a different song, so you’ll have to visit back often. The song “Bugger Off” is currently streaming this week, so go ahead and check it out.

You will probably be able to find Sports Day At Killaloe in the Fiddler’s Green webshop The Shepherd’s Jumble once the release date gets a bit closer, or you can get it from your favorite German music shop. CD Baby might have it as well, since they have their previous album Drive Me Mad (Check out Joe’s review of that album here).

The German black metal band Nocte Obducta will be releasing a new album, titled Sequenzen einer Wanderung real soon on 5th this month. During its over ten years of musical adventures, the band has moved far from their humble black metal roots to encompass a wide variety of styles of metal, such as folk, ambient and progressive metal. A whole new direction has been achieved on the new album: Sequenzen einer Wanderung will feature a whopping two (2) tracks of atmospheric metal, both halves of the album clocking in at over 20 minutes. I have no idea of how credible the information is, but it seems as though this one might be Nocte Obducta’s last one for an indefinite time. If you have some concrete info on this, please feel free to comment!

The new album will be available as your usual CD, but also a limited vinyl version and a wooden box edition. Apart from the fancier packaging and very marginally bigger price, the box doesn’t hold any (other) wonders beside the album itself, but it is however limited to just 1000 pieces and also each one is numbered individually. Amazon.de has all the different versions for sale - 17,99€ for the regular CD, 19,99€ for the vinyl LP and 20,95€ for the box. If you order the box for 19,90€ at Nocte Obducta’s record label Supreme Chaos Records, you’ll also get a free poster and button.

You can catch a trailer of sorts for the album here, unfortunately that’s pretty much one of the only places you can get any sort of feel for the album. You can, however, listen to some samples from earlier records on their (horribly outdated) website.

Tracklisting for Sequenzen einer Wanderung by Nocte Obducta
1. Ende
2. Nebel II

On April 30th, Sopor Aeternus & The Ensemble of Shadows (or just Sopor Aeternus) released its eleventh album titled Sanatorium Altrosa (Musical Therapy for Spiritual Dysfunction). Sopor Aeternus is a German oddity of a darkwave, folk and gothic project comprised of just one person, the mysterious Anna-Varney Cantodea. Not much is known about Anna-Varney, “not much” meaning not a bloody thing including his/her actual gender, real name or age.

The new album Sanatorium Altrosa comes in two different setups, a deluxe hardcover book edition and an even more deluxe boxed set. Both of them are limited to just 999 copies, so the CD is highly difficult to get anywhere. Actually, the only place I managed to find it at is Isotank where you can get the book edition for $59.99. The record is already completely sold out in other retailers I checked, so good luck getting your hands on this one.

To get a taster for Sopor Aeternus’s interesting mix of folkish and gothic aesthetics and musical elements, check out their MySpace site.

Track Listing for Sanatorium Altrosa:
01. Consider this: the true Meaning of Love (instr.)
02. Architecture II
03. Shave, if you love me (remix)
04. La Mort d’Arthur (instr.)
05. Consider this (orig. version)
06. The Conqueror Worm II (instr.)
07. In der Palästra (instr.)
08. Collision
09. Les Fleurs du Mal (instr.)
10. Bitter Sweet (instr.)
11. Consider this: the true Meaning of Love

This week’s Radio Goethe podcast takes us into the realm of old medieval sounds. Whether it’s pagan folk or medieval metal, there are plenty of modern day bands that are strongly influenced by the music of past centuries. They use old instruments that you just don’t find these days, often hand-made, and some musicians even go as far as to sing in old languages or dialects and take their lyrics from ancient texts. This is a really fascinating genre of music which doesn’t usually get much attention outside of central Europe, but it’s great to listen to and broaden your horizons. Check it out now on RadioGoethe.org or iTunes.

This week’s Radio Goethe podcast
Tanzwut: Eisenmann
In Extremo: Raue See
Subway to Sally: Auf Kiel
Volkstrott: Zu schön
Corvus Corax: Dulcissima
Saltatio Mortis: Prometheus
Coppelius: 1916
Castus: Sommerkanon
Faun: Satyros (live)
Haggard: Herr Mannelig
Schelmish: Chaos
Qntal: Sleeping
Helium Vola: Fama tuba

The folk band Faun will release their first live CD later this week on March 28th. It will be called Faun And The Pagan Folk Festival-Live, named after the event it was recorded at during October 2007, and features music by Faun and their guests Sieben and In Gowan Ring. Included in the tracklisting are 2 songs that have not been released before. I haven’t found anywhere to sample their live album, but you can hear the studio versions of some of these songs on Faun’s MySpace page.

Buy Faun’s live album
You can pre-order Faun’s new live album on their website or buy it at one of their concerts while they are on tour in Germany. While it doesn’t appear to be released in North America, fans abroad will still be able to get it from a store like Isotank.com, although it’s a bit pricey because it’s an imported item.

Faun And The Pagan Folk Festival-Live tracklisting
01. Gaia
02. Rad
03. Satyros
04. Rosmarin
05. Love’s Promise
06. Sahhara (previously unreleased)
07. Dandelion Wine
08. Itansa
09. Aisi Sissika (previously unreleased)
10. Tinta
11. The Trip Goes On

Germany has a very strong folk-rock and folk-punk scene with several prominent bands in the genre. Mr. Irish Bastard is just one more to add to the list, if you haven’t already heard of them, that is. Their second album called Bastard Brotherhood was just released on Friday, February 29th. It’s on Reedo Records and is being distributed by Rough Trade, so Irish drinking music fans across Europe should be able to find the album pretty easily. But don’t worry if you are outside Europe, you can still find it in the band’s online shop for 12 Euros. While you’re at it, you might want to check out their first album St. Mary’s School Of Drinking for just 8. Definitely something to check out if you’re a fan of Fiddler’s Green, Flogging Molly, etc.

Be sure to stop by the Mr. Irish Bastard Myspace page to listen to a few songs and check out their European tourdates.

Mr. Irish Bastard - Bastard Brotherhood tracklist
01. Triocha Piosa D’Airgead Geal
02. Let Go
03. Fortune & Glory
04. This World
05. Galway Bay
06. Walk With Me
07. One Second
08. Why Can’t I Be You
09. Last Pint
10. Christmas In Hell
11. Everything Must Die
12. La Vida Loca
13. In Gods Hands
14. Blood On The Flag
15. Killeybegs

Earlier in the decade before Subway To Sally signed on with Nuclear Blast, they released 2 albums called Herzblut (in 2001) and Engelskrieger (in 2003). These albums were a little more raw and folky than their more recent ones like Nord Nord Ost or Bastard, and some people I know actually prefer this slightly older sound. And now, Herzblut and Engelskrieger can be purchased together as a 2CD set. Nothing really remarkable… Universal probably just realized that they own the labels that released both of these albums (Island and Motor) so they decided to capitalize on Subway To Sally’s more recent success, but it may be of interest to the band’s hardcore fans or collectors.

You can find this combo on AlphaMusic.de for a pretty reasonable 13.99 Euros. They also have samples of every song from both albums there, if you are interested in getting in on this deal to start your STS collection.

Subway To Sally - Herzblut-Engleskrieger tracklisting

Disc 1 - Herzblut:
01. Die Schlacht
02. Veitstanz
03. Das Messer
04. Herrin des Feuers
05. Kleid aus Rosen
06. Wenn Engel hassen
07. Krötenliebe
08. Accingite Vos
09. So rot
10. Drei Engel
11. Kleid aus Rosen (unplugged)

Disc 2 - Engelskrieger:
01. Geist des Krieges
02. Falscher Heiland
03. Unsterblich
04. Kleine Schwester
05. Abendlied
06. Narben
07. 2000 Meilen unterm Meer
08. Knochenschiff
09. Wolfstraum
10. Verloren
11. Abendland

The new Schelmish album Wir Werden Sehen was kind of informally announced here a month ago when “I told you about their single “Moor” but I thought you might like to know a little more about the album. Wir Werden Sehen typifies Schelmish’s folk-rock style which seems to be growing in popularity in Germany lately. If you like the sound of bagpipes and other more traditional instruments combined with your rock music, like fans of In Extremo or Saltatio Mortis do, you will almost definitely like Wir Werden Sehen. The medieval instruments lay out the melodies while the guitar riffs come in to stir things up a bit. It’s a combination that’s very pleasing to the ears.

Wir Werden Sehen will be released this Friday, October 19th, in Germany. Unfortunately, there’s no U.S. release, but you can buy a copy from Isotank who has imported them for us. They are kind of expensive, but you would be paying just as much if you imported it yourself from a German online shop. It’s a shame good music has to cost so much just because we are far away.

Abella.de has samples for every song on the album that you can download or stream with Real Player. But if you hate Real Player as much as I do, Schelmish’s MySpace page currently has 4 full length songs from the new album that you can listen to, instead. (Is MySpace really any better than Real Player? They are both pretty bad if you ask me, but that’s a discussion for another time…)

Schelmish - Wir Werden Sehen tracklist:
01. Intro (The Holeyologists Prayer)
02. Gefangener Der Zeit
03. Ehrlich
04. Blitz
05. So Allein
06. Der Narr
07. Hunter
08. Stern
09. Kreuzzug Gegen Die Verlogenheit
10. Blessed Be
11. Das Moor
12. Andersland
13. Herr Niemand
14. Wir Werden Sehen
15. Rainbow
16. Outro

The pagan folk group known as Faun will be releasing a new DVD called Ornament next month. According to their website, the DVD will be called Ornament and contain 3.5 hours of footage. I’m assuming it’s live material, although it doesn’t say specifcally. One interesting detail they do include is that the digipack case Ornament will come in has lots of artwork by the French artist Martine Fassier. Check out some of the work on that site, it’s pretty cool.

Ornament will be formally released on November 9th, but you will be able to get it earlier if you are attending the Pagan Folk Festival tour which is going on right now across Europe with dates through next week. The tracklist hasn’t been announced yet, but I will post an update closer to the release date with exactly what the DVD contains.