Welle: Erdball – Operation: Zeitsturm

Releasedate: 23-04-2010; Label: SPV
By: Nina Mende

Welle: Erdball (often abbreviated as W:E) is a group from Germany often credited with being the pioneers of bitpop. The heavy use of the Commodore 64’s SID sound chip makes their sound instantly recognizable. Their sound is reminiscent of electronic music pioneers Kraftwerk. The name literally means “Wave: Earthglobe”, and in fact comes from a German radio play called “Hallo! Hier Welle Erdball!”. Their logo is a Trabant logo turned around. W:E has been a part of the demoscene and produced several musicdisks and other productions over the years. They also gave a live performance at Breakpoint 2006. In addition to their work as Welle:Erdball, the members have a second project called ‘Das Präparat’, in which Honey and ALF work under the pseudonyms ‘Prof Sternau’ and ‘Dr Georg Linde’ respectively.

Welle:Erdball’s latest album is called “Operation:Zeitsturm”. The music on this album is very melodic and dreamy. The vocals by male and female are a little odd but fit in just perfectly well with the rest of the arrangements. The music on this album is spreading a good mood. Somewhere between 60s movies, carnival, old kids movies and toy music Welle: Erball surrounds you with a surreal image. All lyrics are in German and just tighten this image. The vocals, as said before, no matter if male or female are adapted perfectly well to kill all doubts and suck you into this surreal world. “Operation: Zeitsturm” has a very interesting sound that leaves you guessing. There is no escape, so just let go and let Welle: Erdball suck you into their world.

Tracklist: 01. Jarre-Intro 02. Operation: Zeitsturm 03. Wir sind die Maschinen 04. Zurück zum Start 05. Zeitstrangveränderung 06. Die Zeitmaschine 07. Die falsche Front 08. Marie-Sophies Reise 09. Geld regiert die Welt 10. Die Stunde: NULL (C=64) 11. Wir spielen Gott 12. Chaos Total²³ (…und dahinter Gott) 13. Wizard of Wor (erste Version) 14. Lebendig begraben 15. Die Zauberfee

Links:
Welle: Erdball MySpace
Welle: Erdball Official