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U96   (Germany)

 group
Added : 20/11/2001
47030

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Latest U96 news

17/10/2024 : Tomorrow, Alex Christensen will release a 33rd Anniversary mix of U96's anthem Das Boot

30/07/2024 : U96 released a remix of their 1994 hit Love Religion with the help from Sunlike Brothers and Blaze U

11/05/2023 : Daisy Dee could be back with U96 for a new single. She is also working on a best of album (Thanks to Tavi Meran)

12/04/2023 : U96's new single will be entitled Dance Hall Days, a cover of Wang Chung, and it will be out on April 28th

25/09/2022 : DJ Effe dedicated his latest video megamix to U96

29/01/2022 : U96 created a show inspired from Jules Verne's 20 miles under the see for Planetarium Hamburg, with actors Claude Oliver Rudolph and Steve Karier

24/07/2020 : U96 and Wolfgang Flür released a limited double red vinyl entitled Transhuman

More news

U96 albums

	Das Boot	6th Mar 1992	BUY X
	Replugged	4th Jun 1993	BUY X
	Club Bizarre	17th Feb 1995	BUY X
	Heaven	24th May 1996	BUY X
	Rhythm Of Life (unreleased)	1999	BUY X
	Best Of 1991-2001	21st Apr 2000	BUY X
	Out Of Wilhelmsburg	2007	BUY X
	Reboot	29th Jun 2018	BUY X
	Transhuman (with Wolfgang Flür) 2 CDs	Nov 2020	BUY X
	20.000 Meilen Unter dem Meer	9th Sep 2022	BUY X

U96 singles

	Das Boot	28th Jan 1991	BUY X
	I Wanna Be A Kennedy	Feb 1992	BUY X
	Ambient Underworld	Jun 1992	BUY X
	Come 2gether / Der Kommandant	25th Sep 1992	BUY X
	Megamix (Das Boot / Kennedy)	Nov 1992	BUY X
	Night In Motion	19th Mar 1993	BUY X
	Love Sees No Colour	21st May 1993	BUY X
	Club Bizarre	17th Feb 1994	BUY X
	Inside Your Dreams	27th Feb 1994	BUY X
	Love Religion	14th Oct 1994	BUY X
	Boot II	1995	BUY X
	Movin'	1st Jun 1995	BUY X
	Heaven	22nd Apr 1996	BUY X
	A Night To Remember	5th Jul 1996	BUY X
	Venus In Chains	Oct 1996	BUY X
	Calling The Angels Promo only	1997	BUY X
	World Compilation only	1997	BUY X
	Flash's Theme (on compilation Queen Dance Traxx)	1997	BUY X
	Seven Wonders	12th May 1997	BUY X
	In Your Mind (unreleased)	1998	BUY X
	Energie	11th May 1998	BUY X
	Beweg Dich, Baby	8th Aug 1998	BUY X
	Das Boot 2001	14th Dec 2000	BUY X
	We Call It Love	2nd May 2003	BUY X
	Vorbei	3rd Mar 2006	BUY X
	Mr. DJ Put On The Red Light (feat. Das Bo)	Dec 2006	BUY X
	Planet Earth	12th Jan 2015	BUY X
	Dark Matter	26th Oct 2015	BUY X
	Das Boot 2017	7th Jul 2017	BUY X
	Losing Our Time	15th Dec 2017	BUY X
	Zukunftsmusik (feat. Wolfgang Flür)	30th Mar 2018	BUY X
	Angels	15th Jun 2018	BUY X
	Das Boot 2018 (feat DJ T.H & Nadi Sunrise)	16th Nov 2018	BUY X
	Quo Vadis (feat. Joachim Witt)	8th Feb 2019	BUY X
	Night On Earth (feat. Amy Fasola)	21st Jun 2019	BUY X
	Nightride	8th May 2020	BUY X
	Let Yourself Go	3rd Jul 2020	BUY X
	Das Boot v2	15th Nov 2021	BUY X
	New Life	13th May 2022	BUY X
	Atlantis (feat. Claude-Oliver Rudolph)	24th Jun 2022	BUY X
	Ich, Nemo (feat. Claude-Oliver Rudolph)	19th Aug 2022	BUY X
	Dance Hall Days	28th Apr 2023	BUY X

U96 remixes

	Das Boot	1991	BUY X
	Ambient Underworld	1992	BUY X
	Come 2Gether	1992	BUY X
	Love Sees No Colour (Bass Bumpers Remix)	1993	BUY X
	Night In Motion (Bass Bumpers Remix)	1993	BUY X
	Inside Your Dreams	1994	BUY X
	Inside Your Dreams (Remixes Vol. II)	1994	BUY X
	Love Religion	1994	BUY X
	I Wanna Be A Kennedy	Jan 1994	BUY X
	Club Bizarre	1995	BUY X
	Movin'	1995	BUY X
	A Night To Remember	1996	BUY X
	Venus In Chains	1996	BUY X
	Seven Wonders	1997	BUY X
	Night In Motion	27th Sep 2019	BUY X
	Love Religion	4th Apr 2020	BUY X
	Dance Hall Days (Retro Club mix)	16th Jun 2023	BUY X
	Dance Hall Days (Schneider & Groenefeld remix)	11th Aug 2023	BUY X
	Love Religion	26th Jul 2024	BUY X

Featurings and collaborations

Love Message - Love Message

9th Feb 1996

BUY X

U96 biography

In 1991, German producer Alex Christensen and a team of producers named Matiz (Ingo Hauss, Helmut Hoinkis, and Hayo Lewerentz) had the idea to present Klaus Doldinger's main soundtrack-theme of one of his favourite movies 'Das Boot' (by Wolfgang Peterson) in a techno-version. This extremely dynamic and powerful track with a lot of electronic sounds and underwater effects took German floor entirely while it peaked the charts in many countries: Norway, England, Denmark, Sweden, France, Holland, Belgium and Finland. Interestingly enough, this track made it to US and was released by a virtually unknown American label named 'Cohiba Records'. Das Boot was the first Platin-Maxi Single by this group, it sold at more than 500 000 copies.

In the beginning of 1993 U 96 released their first album called Das Boot. Another song from this album which is worth mentioning was I Wanna Be A Kennedy. In many places it reminded Visage's 1980 hit Fade to Grey. This album was produced by Matiz and AC16 (the team that actually produced all the U 96 albums), featuring Miss Melody (Come 2 Gether and Ambient Underworld), Miss Andromeda (Sportly Animal-Loving Extravert) and a rapper named Satchmo on Ambient Underworld.

In 1993, U 96 released their second album entitled Replugged. It was Alex's response to what MTV-Unplugged series which presented a lot of rock music, while he was introducing a techno-rave style in the dance music. The first hit from this album was Love Sees No Colour. Techno version of War Of The Worlds was a reference to Das Boot. While Das Boot was the only one single to be released in the US, Love Sees No Colour was advertised in the US as : 'The Euro-techno smash finally invades American shores !'. A version of Love Sees No Colour remixed by Bass Bumpers was also released. The album was mostly recorded in France (Paris), written and composed by French artists : Lagonda, Castioni, Wycombe, Ac Beat. As usual it was produced by AC 16 and Matiz. Both producers were already in demand by many stars like Diana Ross, Aretha Franklin or Jean-Michel Jarre. This team of writers brought a French flavor to this album which can be clearly heard in Jean-Michel Jarre-alike track called The One Russian. Alex Christensen meanwhile produced and composed songs for other artists : United sung by the team Prince Ital Joe and the ex- 'New Kid In The Block' Marky Mark.

The album Club Bizarre released in 1995 brought a quite new dimension to U 96's music and left a major impression on the new direction Eurodance was taking. The title song Club Bizarre was a small revolution. It was mixing the blue-sounded harmony with a strong and sharp sound of Vocoder creating a hybrid of melancholy and trance. It included a sample from Alannah Myles' A Song Instead Of A Kiss, and chorus was inspired from Carlton's 1990 single Do You Dream. Almost at the same moment, Italian DJ Saccoman released a single called Inspiration using the same melody.

The cover of this album showed Alex in crucified position. In Club Bizarre album was also featured Das Boot II and Love Religion featuring Daisy Dee's voice. The closing song in this album was the ambient-styled Dark Room Rituals with the leading motiv from classic movie by Steven Spielberg 'The Close Encounter of The Third Kind'. This album had a new set of writers and composers. Besides Alex, the music and the texts were also written by Ingo Hauss, Helmut Hoinkis and Hayo Panarinfo. Another revolution was the release of a CD-ROM version fully interactive.

Both 1995 and 1996 were some year of changes for Alex Christensen. First, U 96 was joined by Dea-Li (Dorothy Lapi) (23) a beautiful, dark haired professional dancer and choreographer from Frankfurt with an admixture of Sicilian blood. The second change was the fact that Alex bought a new house in Mallorca, a small palace with 6 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, large living room, kitchens, huge dining room, 3 fireplaces, obviously a pool. and 2 fountains. But Alex's love affair with Mallorca was also partially professional. He performs several times a year in the island, the most often in disco temples like BCM or Joy Parade, which are among the biggest dance floors in Europe. Alex was often invited to Mallorca by DJ Sammy, 'The King of Disco Heat', co-owner of Joy Parade who also helped Alex in purchasing his new house. Most of the songs in his new album were composed in here.

In May 24th, 1996 U 96 released their fourth album entitled Heavenin which Dea-Li was featured (she participated in the preparation of 4 tracks). Right from the start the title song Heaven, first single to be released, became a hit. The controversy around this track was an almost obvious 'ripoff' of Cyndi Lauper's Time After Time. The major difference beside the text is the speed of the track (154 BPM). Besides Heaven, the album contained several potential hits such as Are You Ready (sort of Trip Hop track but with nice sequence lines and vocals), A Night To Remember (nice male vocal, danceable Euro-Energy sound), Venus in Chains (which repealed to Grace Jones' hit Slave To The Rhythm), or the completely instrumental Drag Queen (acid sound with help of tribal drums).

During the summer Alex came back to Mallorca, where in July he took part to the meeting gathering the leading DJ's from Europe (such as Charlie Lownoise, Mental Theo, DJ Hooligan or Mark 'OH...). From Heaven, many singles were released. In May the title song Heaven was one of the summer hits of 1996. It was followed by A Night To Remember in August and Venus In Chains in October. In May 1997 U-96 released a new single entitled Seven Wonders, where a new vocalist was introduced : Nicky. Seven Wonders brought back the unique U 96 sound, virtual dance techno sound at its best.

2000 : U 96 released an album called Best Of 1991-2001 with 5 new songs and a bonus megamix CD. In the album's sleeve, you can find Alex's a and U96's story. There was also a new version of Das Boot released as a single, entitled Das Boot 2001.

Meanwhile Alex began to work on other projects, among which Rollergirl (started in 1999) and ATC (started in 2000).

2002 : some rumours are going around that there would be soon a full album called like I Love Italo Disco... The new video shows Alex with a nice girl called Yasmin K, who took part to the real-TV broadcast Popstars - his "new" artist-name would be "Alex C.". His new title was an interesting cover (also dance-style) from Corona's eurodance classic hit Rhythm Of The Night... Then came the singles Angel Of Darkness (named after the new Tomb Raider game) and Amigos Forever.

2003 : U 96 was back again, wtih a new single entitled We Call It Love. It contained a sample of a pop-song, as well as soundparts of the hits Das Boot and Inside Your Dreams.

2005 : Love Sees No Color was covered by the project Shokata.

2006 : New single of U96, a slow track entitled Vorbei, featured Ben and it was . It peaked to #28 in the German charts. In May Alex worked on the new Paul Anka album. He had just finished the new Allessandro Safina album, and did also the top single Erinner Mich from Ivonne Catterfeld.

The follow-up single featured the rapper Das Bo, and was called Put On The Red Light. It was absolutely not a dance track. The video shooting was on October, 14th in the H1 CreamClub in Hamburg. The new album Out Of Wilhelmsburg is planned for release in 2007.

2007 : Dea Li, after a long pause during which she appeared in a few movies, released an album entitled Hungry as a Hunter.

2010 : Das Boot was remixed by Manolo Fernandez. The result is Das Boot 2010 by Manolo Fernandez vs. U96, released at the end of last March.

2014 : Club Bizarre was covered by Andrew Lias & Crew 7 feat. Paloma

2015 : former U 96 members Ingo Hauss and Hayo Lewerentz created U96 Reboot, without Alex Christensen. They recorded songs Planet Earth, Run With It and Dark Matter

Thanks to Ulrich Valtat, Denis "DJ Hooligan" Zhabkine, Tavi Meran, Nico and Shervin A.
Thanks to Christian DTM NoLimits for the latest informations

U96 biography was last updated Sat, March 4th 2023

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