Arctic Circle 18
| Arctic Circle 18 | |
|---|---|
 Polarkreis 18 (Concert Huxley's Neue Welt Berlin March 6, 2009) |
|
| General information | |
| Genre (s) | Synth-pop , indietronic , post-rock , pop-rock , electro-pop |
| founding | 1998 as Jack of All Trades 2004 as Arctic Circle 18 |
| resolution | 2012 |
| Website | www.polarkreis18.de |
| Last occupation | |
| Felix Robber | |
Guitar, piano |
Philipp Makolies |
| Christian Grochau | |
| Uwe Pasora | |
Piano, guitar, trumpet |
Ludwig Bauer |
| former members | |
guitar |
Hans-Christoph Kotzsch |
Piano, electronics, backing vocals |
New Year Wenzel (1998-2011) |
Polarkreis 18 was a pop group from Dresden , which developed from the band Jack of All Trades . Stylistically, Polarkreis 18 mix pop , synth pop , post rock and indietronic . Above all, the album 13 by Blur inspired the band, their punk - and metal to leave roots and turn to more experimental sounds.
history
Polarkreis 18 was founded in Dresden at Christmas 1997. It emerged from the previous projects NBI , Adrenaline and Jack of all Trades . Before 2005, the band temporarily consisted only of the core members Räuber , Wenzel and Pasora.
The first publication of Polarkreis 18 was a free five-track download album in 2004. A special feature was the sound film that premiered on October 2, 2005 in Dresden for the purpose of visualizing the concert .
In 2006 the band took second place at the f6 Music Award and emerged as the winner of the PlugIn Festival , which subsequently earned them a record deal with the Motor Music label . Her self-produced debut album Polarkreis 18 (mixed by Jochen Naaf ) was released there on February 16, 2007 . B. in Spex , the intro or Spiegel Online .
In February 2008, the group appeared in the opening act of the German tour of the Smashing Pumpkins . In October 2008, they released the theme song Alone Alone for the film Krabat . The song made it into the top 10 of the German single charts and reached number 1 in the charts after three weeks. The German, English and Danish-language remix alone, alene by the rock group Nephew rose to number 3 in the Danish single charts in mid-October 2008. The second album from the Arctic Circle 18 is titled The Color of Snow and appeared on 17 October 2008. The sound it was compared to the previous album Arctic Circle 18 significantly greater pathos and orchestral. Rammstein's arranger Sven Helbig provided the necessary orchestral parts, which were recorded by the Babelsberg film orchestra. The band's trademark motif in the block of ice on the cover and in the artwork of the booklet was photographed by Matthias Popp.
On February 13, 2009, Polarkreis 18 entered the Federal Vision Song Contest 2009 with their second single, The Color of Snow , but with a German version and not an English version as can be heard in the video, for the federal state of Saxony and achieved 2nd place. When The Color of Snow entered the 5th place in February 2009, Polarkreis 18 had two singles in the German single top ten at the same time.
The video for the title Alone from Polarkreis 18 was one of the nominees for the Echo Music Prize 2009 in the Best Video category, and in the same year they played as the opening act for Depeche Mode on the “Tour of the Universe”.
The album The Color Of Snow reached the gold record in Germany in 2010 for 100,000 units sold.
The album Frei was released on November 26, 2010 . The first single is called Infinite Symphony and was released on November 12, 2010. The commercial success of the previous album could not be continued.
At the end of June 2011, Silvester Wenzel left the group to take a different musical direction in the future.
In 2012, Polarkreis 18 decided to withdraw from the public for the time being and to devote themselves to different projects. While the singer Felix Räuber was touring with Maximilian Hecker , Christian Friedel founded the band Woods of Birnam with Philipp Makolies, Christian Grochau, Uwe Pasora and Ludwig Bauer , which is equally active on concert stages and in the theater (permanent engagements and changing production participations on Staatstheater Dresden and at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus ). In 2016, Felix Räuber and Eva Croissant founded Project Two of Millions under the Universal label .
Felix Räuber has been active as a solo artist since 2018. The debut EP Wall was followed by another EP called Me in 2019 .
The band never officially broke up, all members continue to make music and support each other with their projects. In an interview with the ZDF television format Volle Kanne in July 2019, Räuber also noted that a joint comeback of the band was still not planned despite the good professional and private relationships of the former members.
Origin of the band name
There are different stories about the origin of the band name, which according to guitarist Makolies is a gag: According to an early interview, the band name came from the random name of a sound file during studio work, which was later adopted first for a song and then as a group name . In a later interview, Robin Schwidtal, triangle and flap horn player of the band, explained the origins of the band name differently: The father of a friend had undertaken an expedition to the Arctic Circle . However, he was technically so poorly equipped that two toes froze to death. So when he got back he would only have eight toes left. According to the picture , however, the singer told Felix Räuber that this misfortune had overtaken his father.
Discography
Studio albums
| year | title |
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes) |
Remarks | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 DE
|
 AT
|
 CH
|
|||
| 2005 | Look | - | - | - |
First published: 2005
|
| 2007 | Arctic Circle 18 |
DE96 (1 week) DE |
- | - |
First published: February 16, 2007
|
| 2008 | The Color of Snow |
DE14th  (27 weeks)DE |
- |
CH62 (6 weeks) CH |
First published: October 17, 2008
Sales: + 100,000 |
| 2010 | Free |
DE73 (1 week) DE |
- | - |
First published: November 26, 2010
|
Singles
| year | Title album |
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes) |
Remarks | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
DE
|
AT
|
CH
|
|||
| 2008 |
Alone Alone The Color of Snow |
DE1 × 3
(49 weeks)DE |
AT2 (34 weeks) AT |
CH7 (36 weeks) CH |
First published: September 26, 2008
Sales: + 480,000 |
| 2009 | The Color of Snow The Color of Snow |
DE5 (9 weeks) DE |
AT38 (4 weeks) AT |
- |
First published: February 13, 2009
|
| Happy Go Lucky The Color of Snow |
DE72 (1 week) DE |
- | - |
First published: June 12, 2009
|
|
| 2010 | Infinite Symphony Free |
DE32 (7 weeks) DE |
- | - |
First published: November 12, 2010
|
Music videos
- Alone Alone , directed by Hagen Decker
- The Color of Snow , directed by Sven Helbig & Krause Brothers
- Happy Go Lucky , directed by Sven Helbig
- Infinite Symphony , directed by Daniel Warwick
- Frei , directed by Nora Otte
Awards for music sales
-
Denmark
- 2009: for the single Alone Alone
Note: Awards in countries from the chart tables or chart boxes can be found in these.
| Country / Region |
gold |
 platinum
|
Sales | swell |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Awards for music sales (country / region, awards, sales, sources) |
||||
|
Denmark (IFPI)
|
- |
platinum1
|
30,000 | ifpi.dk |
|
Germany (BVMI)
|
2 × gold2
|
platinum1
|
550,000 | musikindustrie.de |
| All in all |
2 × gold2
|
2 × platinum2
|
||
swell
- ↑ Parklife an der Elbe , article at motor.de ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b Bild-Zeitung of October 30, 2008
- ↑ Reviews appeared in SPEX # 306 ( Memento of the original from December 1, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Reviews appeared in Intro # 146 ( memento of the original from October 5, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Heard on February 6, 2007 on Spiegel Online
- ↑ Polarkreis 18: Newcomer with two singles in the top 10 of the single charts and on tour! ( Memento of the original from May 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on musiktipps24.com
- ↑ http://www.polarkreis18.de/ , as of March 8, 2014
- ↑ Arctic Circle 18 - in the Ice Age alone ( Memento of the original from April 9, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on rp-online.de
- ↑ Polarkreis 18 in an interview with ARD on February 20, 2007 ( memento of the original from May 5, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Polarkreis 18 in an interview with DASDING on November 12, 2008
- ↑ a b Chart sources: DE AT CH
- ↑ Arctic Circle 18 - Infinite Symphony
- ↑ Arctic Circle 18 - Free
Web links
- Official website
- Sound carrier of Polarkreis 18 in the catalog of the German National Library
- Polarkreis 18 on MusicBrainz (English)
- Arctic Circle 18 at laut.de