Angelas Park – Generation Monoton

Talk about a newcomer! Angelas Park from Sachsen-Anhalt was formed just three years ago in 2006, and their career has definitely started with a bang: amidst touring all over Germany with Virginia jetzt! and EL*KE, the band has won both the YOU-festival’s MySpace band award and the respected Udo-Lindenberg-Stiftung’s Panikpreis and also released an EP, Essen für die Seele. For 2009 they’re already planning some great things, like inevitable first album and of course winning the Bundesvision Song Contest. Angelas Park’s cheerily anarchistic poprock is sure to win many a heart to their favor.

Generation Monoton doesn’t unfortunately have a music video, but thanks to Raab’s show, you can check out the energetic band perform the song live here. I’m afraid the self-released EP doesn’t seem to be available anymore, but you can purchase the download-only single Generation Monoton on Musicload.de and iTunes. The band’s MySpace has a total of six full-length tracks, including Generation Monoton for you to check out. You can also download two free tracks on the official site’s Ohrwürmer section.

Rage – Gib dich nie auf

By contrast to the many young bands in the contest, by far the most long-running and well-known band outside Germany taking part in the Bundesvision is Rage, representing Nordrhein-Westfalen. Their debut was released a mighty 24 years ago under the name Avenger, and the current studio album Carved in Stone is their eighteenth studio album. Rage was there when the heavy metal scene in Germany was just emerging, and they’re still here, blasting their thrash-influenced power metal with no less ferocity than over twenty years ago. It seems to be a sort of a tradition to have at least one metal band of some sort at BuViSoCo (they also often finish with pretty high points), and this year Rage is here to fill the slot.

Gib dich nie auf is Rage’s entry piece and also the title of their latest EP. They don’t have a music video, but as always, you can see the band perform Gib dich nie auf live on Raab’s TV show here. You can also find the track on both the band’s MySpace as well as a free download (and either in English or German!) in the media section of their site. There’s also a whole load of other completely free songs for you to download, if the MySpace samples aren’t enough. The EP is exclusively available on Nuclear Blast’s webshop, and they also have the latest album and a bundle of both.

Ruben Cossani – Bis auf letzte Nacht

Although the band Ruben Cossani was formed in 2006, the forces behind it are hardcore professionals. Michael van Dyke, the frontman of the band, is a successful solo artist, producer and composer and has been working with music since the 80s, and it shows: Ruben Cossani’s debut album Tägliche Landschaft was released in February 2008 to wild critical acclaim. The band calls itself a retro-pop band, and that means they’re all about bringing the classic sounds of sixties’ pop bands back to life. The next album is already in the works and supposedly out early this year, but before that, we’ll see whether or not their interesting retro style has what it takes to win a contest full of modern German music.

In keeping with their retro principles, Ruben Cossani’s Bis auf letzte Nacht’s music video is an entertainingly archaic-looking piece, viewable here. You can also hear it on Cossani’s MySpace, or check out the player on their official site (right-hand bottom corner) where you’ll get to hear every song from the debut album. Bis auf letzte Nacht was only released as a digital download, available for example at Musicload.de, but Tägliche Landschaft can be found at least on Amazon.de.

Fotos – Du fehlst mir

Now, Niedersachsen’s representative Fotos (founded in 2005) is embracing the possibilities of the internet and Web 2.0 in a refreshingly different sort of way. Of course, they have a strong MySpace presence, but who doesn’t these days? For example, their official site is actually a photo blog, and most updates on whatever the band’s been doing are posted on their Twitter page, and the band even has a Facebook profile where updates and live dates are posted as well. Unfortunately, despite their firm grasp of internet’s different applications, they don’t practice what I would’ve liked the most – giving away at least some of their very british-sounding indie rock for free.

Fotos is coming to Bundesvision with a song from their second album, Nach dem Goldrausch, released in 2008. Du fehlst mir’s music video can be viewed here, or about a half of it can be heard on the band’s MySpace. The song was released as a digital download –only single, available for example at Musicload.de. You can also buy the full-length from Amazon.de.

Here we are with the second installation of the Bundesvision Song Contest 2009 series, presenting the next four bands that are competing for the win…

Chapeau Claque - Pandora (Kiss Miss Tragedy)

Chapeau Claque is the band representing Thüringen in the 2009 Bundesvision Song Contest and is a little-known pop band created by the singer of Zweiekkenkreis, Maria Antonia Schmidt, and is essentially a solo project with the only one “real” member of the band. Various musical elements were contributed by Northern Lite, from the 1st Decade indie record label that they share. To return the favor, she was a guest vocalist on Northern Lite’s single “Enemy”. Since Chapeau Claque’s founding in 2006, the band has released 2 albums: the 2007 debut Hand Aufs Herz, and the followup Fabelweiss released just a few months ago in October of 2008.

The band’s entry in the contest is the first track from Fabelweiss, “Pandora (Kiss Miss Tragedy)”. It will be released as a single this week on Friday, February 13th, just before the contest which is on the 16th. The single will have 2 versions of the song, plus an unreleased bonus track called “Fluss Amur”. The song itself is pretty generic soft pop-rock with some electronic elements sprinkled in. The vocals seem to be the highlight. There’s a pretty interesting music video for the song that you can watch on Youtube. The Chapeau Claque Myspace page also has additional songs to listen to.

Olli Schulz - Mach den Bibo!

The indie rock band Olli Schulz is representing the city-state of Hamburg in this year’s Bundesvision contest with their song “Mach den Bibo!” They started several years ago on the terrific indie label Grand Hotel van Cleef, but have since experienced some bigger success and moved up to Columbia. In total, they have released 3 albums and 7 singles and EPs, including “Mach den Bibo!” which will be appearing in stores this Friday the 13th. You can listen to the song in the video on the front page of Olli Schulz’s website, you just have to skip ahead past the intro/talking. There are other songs available on the band’s Myspace page. Naturally, you can pre-order the “Mach den Bibo!” single on Amazon.de.

Peter Fox - Schwarz zu Blau

Peter Fox is a musician from Berlin and is perhaps best known as one of the singers of the famous German reggae band Seeed. However, the song he currently has competing in the Bundesvision Song Contest is his own solo work and is in more of a hip-hop or rap style, a genre that has become increasingly popular in Germany in recent years. Due to his past success, Peter Fox is quite well known and should do pretty well in the contest.

His song “Schwarz zu Blau” is meant to be somewhat of a representation of Berlin’s nightlife. The music video for the song kind of goes along with this theme, but the most impressive thing about it is all of the animations that have been added in to look like moving graffiti on the walls and sidewalks and so forth. It’s definitely worth it to watch it, even if you’re not a big fan of rap. If you are, then you should definitely stop by his Myspace page and listen to some of his other songs, especially “Alles Neu” which possibly the coolest rap song ever. A “Schwarz zu Blau” 2-track single is available on Amazon.de

Flowin Immo et les Freaqz - Urlaub am Attersee

Flowin Immo et les Freaqz is described as a rap group, which may be somewhat true, but that description is simply too simplistic to capture their true sound. I would say they are more like electrofunk… like some kind of a combination of old school Afrika Bambaataa and modern day electroclash. It’s definitely an interesting entry for Bremen.

Unfortunately, their website is pretty much useless (and very strange), and they seem to be pretty unknown to most people, so we’ll have to leave it at that. But you can watch the music video for “Urlaub am Attersee” and find the single on Amazon.de here if you’re into it.

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.

Polarkreis 18 was one of the first bands ever covered on Germaniac.com, and Greg was seriously impressed with their debut self-titled album that came out in early 2007. The young band didn’t waste any time, and released a second full-length, The Colour of Snow, last October. It was preceded by the single Allein allein which turned out to be a suprise hit - serves the band right, as Allein allein is a really good song. It’s beautiful and adequately chilly, and has a great, catchy singalong chorus to boot. The album itself is also one of my personal favourites from last year. Polarkreis 18 has been rightfully compared to Sigur Rós from Iceland, but on The Colour of Snow the band moves beyond being just a German version of that band to actually being even better, especially when compared to Sigur Rós’s lackluster latest offering, also released last year. Polarkreis are also coming out with another single cut, the title song from the current album, soon on 13th February, but details of the release are scarce at the moment. It will at least be their entry for the Bundesvision Song Contest 2009 which will be held mid-February.

If you’re up for some fantastic, chillingly beautiful electronic indie rock soundscapes and/or are seeking for more of something like Sigur Rós, you’d do well to get to know Polarkreis 18. Their MySpace has four lengthy samples from The Colour of Snow and also two older ones, they’re a good way to get you started. There’s also a brand new video for the upcoming single track, viewable here. The album is pretty widely available, for example both Amazon.de and Amazon.com have it.

Polarkreis 18 - The Colour of Snow tracklist
1. Tourist
2. Allein Allein
3. Prisoner
4. Untitled Picture
5. The Colour Of Snow
6. 130/70
7. Rainhouse
8. River Loves The Ocean
9. Name On My ID
10. Happy Go Lucky

Death by Kite is a really awesome name for a band, so I just had to tell you about them. This trio hails from Germany’s neighbor to the North, Denmark, and plays as style of music they call noise pop. Falling under the more general term indie rock (or maybe post-rock?), Death by Kite sounds very similar to American bands like Interpol with a kind of mellow calmness and subtly reverberating guitars. I’m really liking it so far, and I have to say my favorite song is “Himmelfahrtskommando”. You can hear this one, along with 3 other complete songs, on Death by Kite’s MySpace page.

The band released their debut album today, also called Death by Kite. The album’s 11 tracks will really appeal to the hipster hidden inside you. You can find it online at CD Baby as well as in Danish music shops like TargetShop.dk.

Death by Kite tracklist
01. Sweet M
02. Bhf. Asta
03. Himmelfahrtskommando
04. Pills
05. It’s Not A Song
06. Hiroshima
07. Scared of Heights
08. Wedding
09. Dare I Eat a Peach?
10. Love Is Never Having To Tell a Lie
11. Bulletin/out

This Friday on August 3rd, Phillip Boa and the Voodoo Club will release their new album Faking To Blend In on Motor Music. This record is a continuation of the band’s indie rock style which has caught a lot of attention across Europe in recent years. Their first single “On Tuesdays I’m Not As Young” is also going to be released on the 3rd, and features a few non-album tracks. You can hear this song and 3 others on the band’s Myspace page.

The album will be offered both in a regular and a limited version. The limited edition will feature alternative artwork (pictured above) and the video for “On Tuesdays I’m Not As Young” in addition to the regular 13 album tracks.

Faking To Blend In
01. On Tuesdays I’m Not As Young
02. Girl Is A Runner
03. Faking To Blend In
04. Drinking And Belonging To The Sea
05. Emma
06. You Are A Parasite But I Love You
07. Queen Day
08. You Hurt Me
09. Sleep A Lifetime
10. Collective Dandyism
11. In Today’s Parties
12. How Much Can You Swallow
13. The Night Before The Last Was Saturday Night

On Tuesdays I’m Not As Young (maxi single)
01. On Tuesdays I’m Not As Young
02. And When Heaven Will Fall
03. The Nun’s Eccentrics
04. Play Cold
05. Lilly And The Century After

Wir Sind Helden just released their latest single yesterday. “Soundso” (read “so und so”) is the title track off their latest album and follows the confused-sounding “Endlich ein Grund zur Panik” single. Honestly, I don’t know if I like their particular variety of indie rock, but at least it’s a bit catchy. What I do know is that Wir Sind Helden has been catching on quite well with fans far beyond Germany. Their international success was really made clear when they received the European Border Breakers Award at the MIDEM show in 2005, signifying that their debut album Die Reklamation was the best selling album from a newcomer in other European countries. This won’t be the last you hear from the Helden.

Soundso single tracklist
01. Soundso
02. T’es comme ca
03. Endlich ein Grund zur Panik (FM4 Session Akustik Live)
04. Die Konkurrenz (FM4 Session Akustik Live)
05. Lass uns verschwinden (FM4 Session Akustik Live)
06. Soundso (Video & Making Of) (Data Track)

Check out some of the songs from the Soundso album on Wir Sind Helden’s Myspace page.

Indie rock band Tocotronic will be releasing a new album by the name of Kapitulation on July 6th. For well over a decade, Tocotronic has used simple German lyrics and offered their own personal style (both in music and appearance) that has been duplicated across Germany in recent years. The band’s success has reached a point at which they need to make a step up. Kapitulation marks the end of the band’s long-lasting relationship with their label L’age D’or. Instead, the album will be released by Vertigo, a sublabel of Universal Records. I have a feeling that this will easily be their most popular album yet. Check Tocotronic’s Myspace page for 2 samples from the new album.

Kapitulation tracklist
01. Mein Ruin
02. Kapitulation
03. Aus Meiner Festung
04. Verschwör dich gegen dich
05. Wir sind viele
06. Harmonie ist eine Strategie
07. Imitationen
08. Wehrlos
09. Dein geheimer Name
10. Sag alles Ab
11. Luft
12. Explosion

Polarkreis 18 is a new band from Dresden. Their self-titled debut album was released a few months ago on February 16th and consists of 11 calm and atmospheric, yet invigorating indie electronic tracks. The closest thing to the sound of this album that I can think of is the Icelandic quartet Sigur Rós. Polarkries 18 is the perfect album to listen to while sitting back and relaxing, maybe during some cold weather given the album’s wintery theme.

Check out some of the (full-length) songs they have available on their website’s music page or the band’s Myspace page.

Polarkreis 18 tracklist
1. Intro
2. Dreamdancer
3. Chiropody
4. Somedays Sundays
5. Crystal Lake
6. Comes Around
7. Stellaris
8. Look
9. After All, He Was Sad
10. Ursa Major
11. Under This Big Moon