U96

Release date

01 January 1970

If you are interested in booking U96, please contact one of our agents: info@international-artists.com

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Their hypnotic-magical techno version of the classic movie soundtrack ‘The Boat’ saw Hamburg band U96,
featuring Hayo Lewerentz and Ingo Hauss, write music history in the early 90’s.

Now the songwriting/producer team has returned with a new double album: Reboot will be out on 29th of June
2018 and includes 17 new songs (plus eight additional numbers on the bonus CD), with lots of different facets and
spectacular guests’ appearances by the likes of Neue Deutsche Welle star Joachim Witt, ex-Kraftwerk drummer
Wolfgang Flür and soul singer Terri B!. More than ten years have passed since the previous U96 album Out Of
Wilhelmsburg (2007) arrived at the stores, so it was high time for a new sign of life.

The history of U96 is that of a highly successful career, starting in 1990 with the band’s foundation by Hayo
Lewerentz and Ingo Hauss, their former production partner Helmut Hoinkis and DJ Alex Christensen. Only one
year later, U96 landed a major hit with them version of the title track of the box office success ‘The Boat’ (13 weeks
at no. 1 in Germany), followed by the same-named debut album which immediately went gold and topped the
German album charts. Its successor Replugged with its slightly more experimental style, inspired by electro pop as
well as ambient and disco sound, corroborated its predecessor’s success a mere twelve months later, clocking up
two more top 10 hits, namely the dance tracks ‘Love Sees No Colour’ and ‘Night in Motion’, as well as producing
forerunners of the impending trip-hop wave with the more laid-back ‘The Russian’ and ‘Without You’.

U96 went on to expand their stylistic range on albums such as Club Bizarre (1995) and Heaven (1996) and
presented, along with their established techno base, also cross references to pop, trance, rave and Eurodance. In
addition, the group had a top 4 hit with their single ‘Heaven’, a quotation of the Cindy Lauper classic ‘Time After
Time’. Things were a little quieter for the band from Germany’s north in the early 2000s. A number of personnel
changes and the split with Alex Christensen in 2014 followed. The two original members Lewerentz and Hauss
subsequently expanded U96’s previous recipe for success by live concerts and DJ Sets featuring a variety of guests.
Special visuals in the style of acts such as The Chemical Brothers were developed for each song, so expectations of
their tour in 2021 are high. Along with the band’s classics, the most important songs from their latest albums
Reboot and Transhuman will be at the center of those concerts.

The collaboration between U96 and Wolfgang Flür (ex-Kraftwerk) on ‘Zukunftsmusik’ and ‘Hildebrandslied’ were
just as trend-setting – an artistically highly exciting liaison between three musicians who, despite the fact that they
are from different generations, are obviously on the same wavelength, adding a kind of post-modern Kraftwerk
dimension to the typical U96 soundscape. Without giving away too much: This cooperation will continue in the
wake of Reboot, a full U96 album with Wolfgang Flür entitled “Transhuman” having been scheduled for autumn
2020.

Ahead of that, on July 3rd 2020, the band releases a new track entitled „Let yourself go“ with club remixes by the
likes of Schneider & Groeneveld, U96 and upcoming Russian Trance Producer/DJ Beatsole (Armada Music)

So, there’s every sign of a storm brewing in the U96 camp (to stick with the band’s maritime moniker). And the best
thing about it: the wind could hardly be fresher and more invigorating than on Transhuman!