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.

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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.

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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.

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Eisblume is a new melancholic pop project fronted by Ria, the singer and creative force of the band. Eisblume’s career in the music world will be started with the EP Unter dem Eis, which will be released on the 16th of May, and it will later be followed by a full-length album as stated in an interview with Ria in the latest German Orkus magazine. Unfortunately, there’s hardly any extensive information on the band anywhere, just check out Eisblume’s own website for proof. I guess it’s still under construction, as the band is really very new.

Eisblume’s music seems to be a lovely combination of almost excessive melancholy, fragile vocals, chilly winter themes, atmospheric, soft pianoes and just a slight touch of heavier elements thrown into the mix. If you are interested, you should head to Eisblume’s MySpace site, where you can find generous samples of four songs from the upcoming EP and album. You can also watch the video for Unter dem Eis embedded below. Unter Dem Eis can be ordered at Alphamusic.de for 5,49 €, but I’m afraid I wasn’t able to find it anywhere else

Important note from Greg: Don’t confuse this new band with the other existing band called Eisblume (this one is at Eisblume.net) which is led by singer Christine Westphal and released an album in 2006.

Tracklisting for Unter dem Eis
01. Unter dem Eis
02. Unter dem Eis (Derek van Krogh Remix)
03. Zeit zu gehen
04. Louise

Unter dem Eis video

First new Corvus Corax song online

Corvus Corax is still working on their next album Cantus Buranus II which is scheduled for release on August 1st, but they have already uploaded a new song on their MySpace page. It’s called “O Varium Fortune” and despite the fact that it’s only a 3-minute rough mix of the song, it’s still well worth a listen. It’s very nice, definitely Corvus Corax. I’m eagerly awaiting this album.

Seabound offers an exclusive MP3 download

During Seabound’s U.S. Alliance Tour, they performed the song “Watching Over You” as an encore with Iris’s singer Reagan Jones in certain cities. This duet was so well received by the crowds that the band decided to record it. Now it’s available as an exclusive MP3 download for fans of both bands to enjoy (or relive the experience, if you were there) over and over again. This particular recording was made at the March 29th concert in San Francisco. To download “Watching Over You” live, just head on over to Seabound.de or simply click here.

Udo Dirkschneider celebrates 20 years: Special concerts, DVD, South American tour

Udo Dirkschneider first met fame as the singer for Accept, but for the past 20 years he has been at the head of his own band U.D.O. To celebrate, the band has planned 2 special concerts in Germany, one of which will have an extra-long 3 hour set that will also include several Accept songs. This concert will also be filmed and turned into a DVD in the future for all U.D.O. fans who couldn’t get tickets for the sold out show.

U.D.O. is also booking concerts for South America and Mexico during the first half of June. For details, visit the tourdates page of U.D.O.’s website.

Schock’s “Making of Halt Still” video

As I reported a while ago, Schock is hard at work on their next album, Halt Still. But it looks like they are making a lot of progress on the album because they recently released a “making of Halt Still” video on their MySpace page. It’s in German, but even if you can’t understand any of it, there’s still plenty of music to listen to between segments of the members speaking and making random noises.

Originally founded in 1993, Die Happy is a pop-rock band from Ulm that has come to be popular across Germany. Adding to the success of their own music, the band’s singer Marta Jandová is well known for her guest performances with the likes of In Extremo, Apocalyptica, and even on Oomph’s song “Träumst Du” which won the 2007 Bundesvision song contest. Most recently, Die Happy has been working on material for a new album.

They just released that album yesterday, April the 18th. It’s called VI and, you guessed it, it’s their 6th album. Well, not exactly. See, that’s the weird thing about this… VI is actually Die Happy’s 9th album, but I guess they don’t care enough about their first 3 self-released albums to even include them as part of their discography. It’s a real shame that they are completely disregarding all that hard work from their past that got them to where they are today. But anyway, yeah, it’s called VI and it’s in stores now.

Listen to the whole album
On a more positive note, you can listen to all 13 songs from the standard version of VI on Die Happy’s MySpace page. If you want to buy the album, you might also consider the limited edition digipack option that comes with a bonus DVD of live and unplugged videos.

Where to buy it
If you’re fortunate enough to be in Europe, you can take advantage of the huge end-of-winter sale that EMP.de is currently having. VI isn’t discounted because it’s new, but be sure to shop around for lots of other awesome releases including some older Die Happy albums that are really cheap right now. For anyone in North America, it looks like the best solution is to order it from Amazon.de.

Die Happy - “Peaches” music video
Here’s the music video for VI’s first single “Peaches” which was released a few weeks ago on March 28th.

Die Happy - VI tracklisting
01. Around The World
02. Still Love You
03. Don’t You
04. Peaches
05. Easy Come Easy Go
06. Sweet Sensation
07. You’ll Never Know
08. Hysteria
09. New York - Tokyo
10. Wannabe
11. Genuine Venus
12. Coming Home
13. The End
14. Frozen Tears (hidden bonus track)

Bonus DVD (on limited edition only)
01. Intro
02. Hello
03. Violent Dreams
04. Breathing
05. Perfect
06. Everyday’s A Weekend
07. Supersonic Speed
08. Slow Day
09. Wanna Be Your Girl
10. The Ordinary Song
11. Still Standing Strong
12. On My Way

New Atrocity video and stadium appearance
We’re getting a double dose of news from Atrocity today. First of all, they recently filmed a new music video for the song “The Sun Always Shines On TV” from their current album Werk 80 II. The song is a metal interpretation of the Norwegian synthpop band a-ha’s 1985 single. Personally, I don’t think either the song or the video are that great so I’m not going to post it here, but you can still watch it on Youtube if you want.

Second, Atrocity will appear at the Gottlieb Daimler Stadium on May 17th for the VfB Stuttgart vs. Arminia Bielefeld final soccer match. The game is sold out which means they will be playing in front of 56,000 people, quite an experience I can imagine.

Wumpscut’s Schädling out in America today
Just a quick reminder to all Wumpscut fans in the USA and Canada: Schädling was just released here today on Metropolis Records. We have been keeping up pretty well with the news about this latest release from Rudy Ratzinger, so check out my post with the tracklisting and other details or Valtteri’s review of the Schädlingsbox if you haven’t been there already.

4lyn is heading to China
Yesterday, 4lyn announced on their website that they will be travelling to the Chongqing region of China to participate in a the German Cultural Weeks during May. They also plan to return to Chongqing, which is one of the most populated areas in China, for next year’s events. These cultural programs are being planned by the Goethe Institut to promote cultural exchange between the countries.

Piscide is now available on iTunes
The German electro-industrial band Piscide just released their second album Elekktroshokk a few weeks ago on March 14th, but it was only available as a physical CD. Now you can find Piscide’s music on iTunes if you prefer to download MP3s instead.