Camouflage (band)
| camouflage | |
|---|---|
 Camouflage at the Amphi Festival 2014 in Cologne |
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| General information | |
| origin | Bietigheim-Bissingen , Germany |
| Genre (s) | Synth pop , electro pop |
| founding | 1983 |
| Website | www.camouflage-music.com |
| Founding members | |
| Heiko Maile | |
| Marcus Meyn | |
Vocals, electronic drums
|
Oliver Kreyssig |
? |
Martin Kähling (until 1984) |
Camouflage is a German synth-pop band.
Band history
The band was founded in 1983 in Bietigheim-Bissingen (Baden-Württemberg) by Heiko Maile , Marcus Meyn, Oliver Kreyssig and Martin Kähling as Licensed Technology. In 1984 Martin Kähling left and the remaining band members gave themselves the new name Camouflage (French for camouflage), inspired by a song by the Yellow Magic Orchestra group .
The first studio was named Boys Factory and was located in the basement of Heiko Maile's parents' house on Metterzimmerer Strasse in Kleinsachsenheim , where two demo cassettes were recorded in 1985 . A friend of mine submitted one of these tapes to a radio station for a competition in which it took 1st place, which made the smaller Frankfurt label Westside aware of the band. With this, the title The Great Commandment was recorded in the fall of 1987 , which eventually led to a recording contract with Metronome Records . The Great Commandment was previously released under the name Suddenly Went Away on a tape sampler called New Music, which was common at the time , and was mainly sold under the covers in the Bietigheim-Bissingen area. While the debut single The Great Commandment reached number 14 in Germany, it made it to number 59 on the Billboard Hot 100 and even number 1 on the Billboard Dance Music / Club Play singles in the USA .
Another big international hit of the group was Love Is a Shield from the second album Methods Of Silence in mid-1989 . In the same year, Camouflage had produced the title of the group Die Erben again for Ein Lied für Lausanne , the preliminary decision for the Eurovision Song Contest 1989 .
In 1990 Kreyssig left Camouflage. A year later, the band, which had shrunk to a duo, released their third album entitled Meanwhile . The trend away from purely electronic sounds to real instruments such as electric guitar and drums, initiated with the previous album, was continued. The pre-single Heaven (I Want You) was less commercially successful than previous releases; it only reached number 57 on the German singles hit parade.
A year later, a project called Areu Areu was launched and an EP of the same name with cover versions and early pieces by Camouflage was released. The basis for this was backing recordings for a live performance at a birthday party by photographer Reiner Pfisterer, who is a friend of the band . Two years later came a new Camouflage album with Bodega Bohemia , with which the group returned to their electronic roots. Although the single Suspicious Love was played on the radio, this record was not very successful commercially either.
Two years later, the album Spice Crackers was released by BMG , which also only sold poorly. In 1997 a best-of compilation followed with We Stroke the Flames , for which a 12 "single with old mixes, including Love Is a Shield, was released in a limited edition.
It wasn't until the summer of 1999 that there was another publication, this time again in a threesome with Oliver Kreyssig: The electro pop single Thief was released that year. It did not stay in the hit parade for long either, which is why the plans for another album were put on hold. In the spring of 2001 a new version of The Great Commandment was released , but with number 85 in the German charts, it failed to meet the record company's commercial expectations. A short time later, We Stroke the Flames was taken off the market because Rewind - The Best of 1995-1987 , a best-of compilation that was personally compiled by Camouflage, came out. In contrast to We Stroke the Flames , this also contained the singles from the 1995 album Spice Crackers and the Special Edition also contained a DVD with videos.
In mid-2003, Sensor was released by Polydor and rose to number 26 on the German charts. The two singles reached the top 80. On July 28, 2006, the new single Motif Sky was released , but it flopped. In August 2006 the accompanying album Relocated was released. Although the new record label SPV hardly promoted the record, it made it to number 57 on the album chart.
In January 2009 the band's first live DVD was released under the title Camouflage - Live in Dresden on SPV. The centerpiece is a concert from the 2006 Relocated Tour in Dresden. In addition, the box set contains an audio CD with a live recording of the concert as well as its own DVD with extensive bonus material.
On March 6, 2015, the eighth studio album Greyscale was released after nine years , with the first single Shine released beforehand . The second single, Count on Me , followed in October , a feature with the Hamburg singer Peter Heppner .
Discography
Studio albums
| year | title |
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes) |
Remarks | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 DE
|
 AT
|
 CH
|
 US
|
|||
| 1988 | Voices & Images |
DE16 (12 weeks) DE |
- | - |
US100 (14 weeks) US |
First published: March 4, 1988
|
| 1989 | Methods of Silence |
DE13 (24 weeks) DE |
- | - | - |
First published: June 5, 1989
|
| 1991 | Meanwhile |
DE61 (6 weeks) DE |
- | - | - |
First published: March 18, 1991
|
| 1993 | Bodega Bohemia |
DE90 (3 weeks) DE |
- | - | - |
First published: April 26, 1993
|
| 1995 | Spice crackers | - | - | - | - |
First published: September 11, 1995
|
| 2003 | sensor |
DE26 (4 weeks) DE |
- | - | - |
First published: May 26, 2003
|
| 2006 | Relocated |
DE57 (2 weeks) DE |
- | - | - |
First published: August 25, 2006
|
| 2015 | Greyscale |
DE14 (2 weeks) DE |
- | - | - |
First published: March 6, 2015
|
Awards
- 1988
literature
- Dirk Horst: Synthiepop - The soulful cold: Stories of Synthiepop . 2nd edition, Books on Demand GmbH, Norderstedt 2011, p. 130 ISBN 978-3-8423-3422-9 .
