One of the best songs by the Jeans Team is “Keine Melodien”. Despite it’s name, there actually is a really catchy melody in the song, and it’s likely to get stuck in your head. It’s such a catchy song, in fact, that Volkswagen (or rather, their advertising agency DDB London) has decided to use it in an advertisement for their new 6th generation Golf.

It’s not just any commercial, though. It’s a 1.5 minute fight scene that takes place inside a VW facility. The basic plot of the scene, which is influenced by various action movies, is that a car designer fights himself, suggesting that the only real thing the new Golf has to compete with is the current model Golf. I guess it makes sense, considering all the praise the current Mk. V Golf has received and the fact that the Golf series is the 3rd highest selling vehicle in the world.

Sadly, we don’t get such entertaining commercials in America. I mean, if they have to exist, they might as well be worth watching, right? Anyway, if you’re in the mood for a little action, watch the ad below and be sure to pay attention to the song that starts playing. If you just want to hear “Keine Melodien” by the Jeans Team by itself, check out their music video which is posted underneath the ad.

Volkswagen’s Golf ad with “Keine Melodien”

Music video for “Keine Melodien” by the Jeans Team

Can you guess what song it is? If you said “Oh Yeah” by Yello, you’re right!

Yello is an early Swiss electronic band started by Carlos Perón, Boris Blank, and Dieter Meier. “Oh Yeah” first appeared on their 1985 album Stella, and was later released as a single in 1986. Although it only reached #51 in the Billboard Hot 100 charts in the US, it became an instant classic after being featured in the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Since then, the song has been featured in everything from The Simpsons as Duffman’s theme song to a recent AT&T cell phone commercial.

“Oh Yeah” is a pretty unique song, and you will probably recognize it, even if you didn’t know where it came from originally. Whether you think it’s a little bit freaky or just plain awesome, there isn’t anything quite like it. (For some reason, it reminds of the yip-yip aliens from Sesame Street.)

If you’re up for some cheap thrills, Amazon.de has Yello’s 1992 compilation Essential. 16 of the best early Yello songs (including “Oh Yeah”) for under 7 Euros. There’s a remastered version of Stella for 12.95, too.

Chicka Chicka!

Most people probably don’t know this, but the new-age world music project known as Enigma is actually of German origin. Originally formed in 1990 by Michael Cretu, the band has recorded many incredibly successful hits over the years and has gone on to sell tens of millions of albums worldwide, making them one of the best selling acts to ever come from Germany.

15 years ago this week, Enigma’s second album The Cross of Changes was released, which included the single “Return to Innocence”. This song became hugely successful around the world after being featured in a number of movies and TV shows, as well as later in a commercial promoting the 1996 Summer Olympics. The band’s signature chanting in the song is often mistaken to be Native American, but it is actually aboriginal Taiwanese. The ethnic sounds are wonderful and reach all types of people, it’s just a great song. Let nostalgia take over for a few minutes and listen to the song below.

Watch Enigma’s “Return to Innocence” music video

Enigma’s new album Seven Lives, Many Faces
If you’re interested in knowing what Enigma is up to these days, you’ll be happy to know that they just released their 7th album called Seven Lives, Many Faces on September 19th in Germany and the 30th in the USA. You can listen to samples from all the songs on Enigma’s website (just click “Music” in the lower menu) where you’ll also see links where you can buy the album.

Die’s new frontman, Mathias “Jablonski” Elsholz, recorded a video for the band’s Youtube channel a few days ago. In the video, he admits that the wait for new music has been a long one, but he asks fans to be patient because the new album is coming soon. The band is currently looking for a record label since they are no longer signed with BBE, but the album will be released as soon as they find one.

Matze also tells us that Die! has recorded a whopping 17 new songs for the album, one of which is already available to hear on the band’s MySpace page. Just click on the song “Lüg Mich An” and have a listen. You’ll get a pretty good idea of what’s to come for the rest of the album from that song and the other demos there.

Mathias Elsholz’s December 1st video (English version)

Thanks to Wared for the tip!

We’ve reported on Thorsten Sudler’s electronic project Deep Imagination in the past, but now his other band Art of Infinity is getting ready to release their new album Endless Future. Art of Infinity’s music is similar to Deep Imagination in that it is largely ambient, but the electronics have been exchanged for more traditional instruments like the guitar, piano, saxophone, cello, and others. Several guest musicians have also participated on Endless Future including vocalists Eva Wolf and Alquimia.

Art of Infinity has made a 1-minute MP3 preview of “Warm Waterfalls” available to download here, and there are samples of the songs “Utopia” and “Endless Future” on the group’s Myspace page. You can also watch the album trailer video below.

Endless Future will be released digitally on September 19th and physically on CD (in an 8-panel digipack) a week later on September 26th. Both versions will have the same content with a total playtime for the 8 song album coming in at just over an hour. Links to pre-order the album in either format can be found in the Art of Infinity webshop.

Art of Infinity - Endless Future tracklisting
01. The Fourth Dimension
02. Endless Future
03. The Flow Of Time
04. Utopia
05. Tube Into Eternity
06. Warm Waterfalls
07. Age Of Changes
08. The Wide End

Endless Future album trailer video

What were you doing in 1991? If you were old enough to know what was going on in the music scene in Germany, you probably heard U96 and their single “Das Boot”. The song is a techno version of the theme song from the 1982 movie Das Boot, which was also the inspiration for the group’s name, and soon became a big hit in Germany. If you haven’t heard “Das Boot” before, check out the video below.

U96 - “Das Boot” video

U96 was joined in the early 90s by other European groups in creating what became known as the Eurodance genre. This is the time period where electronic music really became less experimental and more danceable and mainstream. Among U96’s famous German counterparts in this movement were La Bouche and Culture Beat, which you can relive once again below.

(more…)

Atari Teenage Riot was a highly political anarchist and anti-fascist band that was the first to mix punk and techno in a style that later became known as digital hardcore. They gained extensive popularity during the 90s until they split up in 2000. Since then, band founder Alec Empire has been producing albums under his own name, most recently The Golden Foretaste of Heaven, while other band members have been hard at work with other projects as well.

Now, for the first time, a collection of videos by Atari Teenage Riot, Alec Empire, and former ATR band members Hanin Elias and Nic Endo will be available together on a DVD. It’s called Sixteen Years of Video Material and it was released back on Friday, May 30th. They have produced some pretty crazy videos, so I’d recommend it if you like their music.

Of course, if you don’t know what ATR sounds like, you can listen to some of their music on the ATR MySpace page. Don’t forget to check out Alec Empire’s MySpace page while you’re at it. Then you can order both the regular version and limited editions (which comes with a t-shirt, a poster, stickers and more) of the DVD via the Atari Teenage Riot website.

Check out the banned video for Atari Teenage Riot’s song “Revolution Action” below.

Yeah, you read right. About a month back a rather unusual album dominated the European album charts. The album in question was Chant - Music for Paradise, performed by the monks of the Cistercian abbey of Stift Heilingreiz in Vienna, and in the last couple weeks it has outsold many of your usual popstars and whatnot you’d expect to see in the top ten. Released on May 19th, Chant - Music for Paradise soon conquered the classic charts and threatened the pristine throats of Madonna and the like at the overall charts by penetrating the top ten in the UK, Austria and Germany.

The monks’ unusual success story started when a video of the Cistercian monks, who start their days at the generous time of 5:15 by praying, chanting at their monastery was posted on YouTube. The video soon became a minor internet hit, and when one of the monks sent an application for a contest held by Universal Records, they were soon offered a record contract. This was followed by the setting of a recording studio in their monastery, the recording of a full album, the filming a professional music video and the invasion of the European music charts.

If you’re in any way at all interested in medieval or classical music, you should really take at least a peek at Chant’s work. I’m sure you can enjoy them even if you’re not catholic or religious at all, I know I’m not either and I still did. There are various ways to check them out: you can hear a few songs on their website (player in the up-right corner), download the free song Hymnus ‘Veni Creator Spiritus’ here or just kind of watch the original video where it all started embedded after the break. You can order the album on Amazon, here for those stateside (the American version of the CD is titled Chant - Music for the Soul) and here for Europeans. I hid the rather huge tracklisting behind the link.

(more…)

Wrongkong (I love that name) is a new indie-electro-pop collaboration between musicians from Nuremburg, Germany and Calgary, Canada. Their style is very interesting and makes use of some non-traditional song structures, creating an overall sound similar to some electroclash musicians (Peaches comes to mind, for example). Cyrena’s vocals feel right at home with the quick rhythms and upbeat electronics. I’m really liking it. Go listen to some of Wongkong’s 6 full-length songs on their MySpace page. Check out the video below, too. What do you think?

If you like their music, you’ll be happy to know that their roots on both sides of the Atlantic have also allowed them to get record deals for both Europe and the USA. In the EU, Wrongkong’s self-titled album was just released this past Friday, May 16th, on Modern Soul. There, you can find it on Amazon.de for 15.97 Euros. In the USA, the album is out on Minty Fresh but is only available as a digital download. You can get it on iTunes or from the Minty Fresh website. Enjoy!

Wrongkong - Wrongkong tracklisting
01. In this moment
02. Ooh good
03. Real boy
04. Sweat
05. We sleep together
06. Wide open
07. Catch up
08. Clearly too nice
09. The science of your pleasant dreams
10. Quality retriver
11. Lighthouse
12. Better
13. Hiding

Wrongkong’s “Better” music video

Straftanz’s EP released today

Straftanz released their EP Tanzt Kaputt, Was Euch Kaputt Macht! today (16th May). This is Straftanz’s second release since their self-titled debut EP. Straftanz’s music is straightforward industrial dance music with some clear EBM influences. You can get an idea of this sonic assault on their MySpace, where they have a couple of generous samples from the current EP and also some older material for you to listen.

You can order the fresh EP with a pretty atrocious cover from at least Alphamusic.de for 5,49 €, or if you’re in the States, you can find it at Isotank for $11,99.

I’ve hidden the tracklisting for Tanzt Kaputt, Was Euch Kaputt Macht! and also a video for the title song behind the link at the end of the post.

Unheilig’s next EP to be Spiegelbild

Following the smashingly successful album Puppenspiel and the accompanying single An Deiner Seite, Unheilig will be releasing a new EP in July. Spiegelbild, track #2 on Puppenspiel was chosen by the fans in an extensive voting to be the next EP, just like the previous Unheilig EPs Freiheit and Astronaut. And, just like those ones, Spiegelbild will boast numerous versions of the title song and other tracks from Puppenspiel and also some all-new material recorded specifically for the EP. Unfortunately, no tracklisting has been published as of yet. Spiegelbild will be released on 19th July, and it will be limited to just 3333 copies worldwide. The most certain way of obtaining this release seems to be through emso.de, but you’ll have to wait till June 1st to preorder it.

If you somehow still aren’t familiar with Unheilig’s magnificent, electronically enhanced rock antics, you can check out a few samples on Unheilig’s MySpace site. Additionally, you can watch the video for the latest single cut An deiner Seite hidden behind the link.

Eisblume’s Unter Dem Eis

And finally, just a reminder: the lovely gothic pop band Eisblume just released their debut EP Unter dem Eis today! See the previous post on the subject for track listing, a video for the title song and more.

(more…)