Archive for the german tag

X-Divide: Sometimes

Musician and synthpop/industrial promoter Jens Domgörgen and singer/songwriter Eric Schmaler have just released their first album as X-Divide, called X, on Infacted a few weeks ago. It’s not doing too bad for a debut album; their first single, “Forever”, just found its way into the German alternative top ten. I’m expecting to see them in an opening slot on a synthpop tour this summer–this could be a band worth getting to the show early for.

X on Amazon
official website

Camouflage: Heaven I Want You

This band is probably best known for their classic single “The Great Commandment” but they also had a number of other great tracks such as “Love is a Shield”,  “Anyone”, “That Smiling Face”, and my sentimental favorite, “Heaven I Want You” from the 1991 release “Meanwhile”.

The band is currently active with live shows, re-releases, and new material. For more information, visit their website at: Camouflage Official Site

Kraftwerk: Computer World

I felt it was only appropriate to start with Kraftwerk. These Germans made modern electronic music what it is today. There may have been some doing it earlier, but, in the end, no one did it better. Their rhythmic, synth-driven sound influenced much of the music that was to follow. So much music has borrowed and/or stolen from them. Hip hop, House, Trance, New Wave, and Electronica, all borrowed material from Kraftwerk, especially from the Computer World album. Duran Duran, U2, Soft Cell, Gary Numan, Depeche Mode, Jay-Z, Afrikaa Bambaataa and Soul Sonic Force, Coldplay, Senor Coconut, Laibach, and Peat Bog Faeries (a Celtic fusion band, thank you Wikipedia) have all used material from Kraftwerk or covered their songs.

Their early albums are usually themed. The album Radioactivity is all songs about radioactivity in the sense of radiation—“Geiger Counter”, “Uranium”, and “Radioactivity”—or activity involving radio—“Airwaves”, “Antenna”, and “Transistor”; Trans-Europe Express (an album named for a train) has the title track and “Metal on Metal” (wheels on rails) as examples. Vocals are sparse on any Kraftwerk album and are usually altered through some kind of vocoder or other sound altering device.

The easiest point of entry for someone wanting to explore Kraftwerk is the aforementioned 1981 album Computer World. Listen to this album and you will hear the source material for the samples of countless songs from the 80s and beyond. All the songs from this album—”Computer World” (1 and 2), “Pocket Calculator”, “Computer Love”, “Numbers”, “Home Computer”, and “It’s More Fun to Compute”—are solid tracks. Start your Kraftwerk tour here:

Kraftwerk on Amazon