Music Video: Deichkind - Leider Geil

There are a lot of bands out there that start out interesting, but that get boring after their first or second album.  There are other bands that start out slowly, but pick up speed as they go.  I would put the German hip-hop/techno collective Deichkind in this latter category.  Founded in 1999 in Hamburg, Deichkind started out as a decent, but otherwise non-noteworthy, German rap group in the same vein as Fettes Brot, Fantastischen Vier, or Blumentopf.  In this musical guise, Deichkind put out a couple of okay albums that helped them to develop a hardcore following.

Then, in 2005, things really went off the rails.  With the entry of Electric Super Dance Band in the 2005 Bundesvision Song Contest, Deichkind dove headfirst into a much more interesting and challenging relationship with techno and dance music.  Despite placing 14th out of 15 in Bundesvision, Deichkind had cast their lot, and I think for the better.  Not only were their songs becoming more challenging.  Their live shows were also demonstrating a real affinity for the dramatic, the absurd, and even the bizarre.

Now, on their newly released 5th studio album Befehl von ganz unten, Deichkind continues this experimentation in what they call "TechRap".  Perhaps this is best represented by their new single Leider Geil.  You may not like Deichkind, but they certainly won't leave you unchallenged. 

BTW, as an added bonus, if you really want to see what Deichkind is all about, check out this live version of their song Prost! from Rockpalast in 2011.

Music Video: Sport - Der unsichtbare Dritte

Sometimes, when digging through the music that I have been collecting over the past three years for Open World Music, I stumble across a band that I was really into a while ago, but that had kind of fallen off my radar.  Sport from Hamburg, Germany is one of those bands.  Sport is often heavy music, with pounding bass drum and grinding guitar.  Sport is always dark and broody in mood.  But Sport is always engaging, in sort of a Stranglers having a really bad day sort of way.

Anyway, I have always wanted to post a Sport video on Open World Music.  The problem is, the band is almost invisible.  They have no videos that I can find, other than album tracks that fans have posted.  They barely have a website.  They have had a MySpace page since 2005, but the one album that they list on their discography isn't even one of their albums (they have released five albums as far as I can tell, but even that is just an educated guess).  Even the name Sport is so generic as to render them all but invisible to search engines.  I wonder if this is intentional, but something tells me that they're just not that into marketing themselves.

But, if you look long enough, you're bound to find something.  And so, today I bring you the single music video (and it's a fan video at that) for a Sport song that I could find, Der unsichtbare Dritte.  In my opinion, it's not their best song.  But it is pretty representative of their oeuvre.  If you like this, Sport just released a new album this month called "Aus der Asche, aus dem Staub", and it's on iTunes.

Bundesvision 2011: Hamburg

Thees Uhlmann - Zum Laichen und Sterben ziehen die Lachse den Fluss hinauf

I like songs that reflect on the paths that life takes us down.  I also like songs that have catchy musical hooks.  Thees Uhlmann's Zum Laichen und Sterben ziehen die Lachse den Fluss hinauf provides both of these things.  And really, this is a nice song.  There's plenty of emotional power, there's plenty of introspective reflection.  But for whatever reason, it seems like the sum total of this song is less than its component parts.  Despite its strong points, Zum Laichen und Sterben is musically just a little too repetitive, and its sentiment seems just a little too forced. 

Prediction:  Zum Laichen und Sterben ziehen die Lachse den Fluss hinauf will appeal to German sentimentality.  But I don't think that it will appeal to more than a minority of Bundesvision voters.  I predict Zum Laichen und Sterben to do better than some of the competition, but will still dwell in the bottom third.

Bundesvision 2010: Hamburg

Selig: Von Ewigkeit zu Ewigkeit

I have a confession to make. Selig's Von Ewigkeit zu Ewigkeit was released only a few days ago, but in the lead up to its release I listened to a lot of other Selig to get a sense of what to expect. To be honest, I was expecting to hate Von Ewigkeit zu Ewigkeit. I was expecting it to be of a similar ilk to Sebastian Hämer and Unheilig's entries, which were both decently executed but emotionally overwrought power ballads. To put it bluntly, I hate power ballads.

Fortunately, I was wrong. Von Ewigkeit zu Ewigkeit is emotionally loaded, but it isn't cloyingly so. It carries that load with a lightness that the competition can't seem to manage. Yeah, it doesn't quite break out of many of the conventions of a power ballad - up to and including a synth string section to add some punch. But, within those conventions, Von Ewigkeit zu Ewigkeit is able to maintain a basic level of self-respect that can often be lost when frayed emotional strings are too often pulled.

Prediction: While Selig's Von Ewigkeit zu Ewigkeit is a pretty decent song, I doubt that it will over-awe the German public. It will probably beat other songs in this genre in the competition, but it will still probably end up at the lower end of the middle of the pack.