U96 96, U - 96, U 96, U-96, U.96, U·96, U96Reboot, V 69, V69, V96
German techno act that made it's name in 1991 with the chart-topping commercial success of the track "Das Boot", based on the theme music of the movie "Das Boot". The name "U96" is the designation of the German U-boat featured in the film. U96 consists of: Ingo Hauss (1991-2006 & 2014-, vocals, instruments and programming) Hayo Panarinfo (1991-2006 & 2014-, instruments and programming) Josh Stolten (2014-, instruments and programming). Former members: Alex Christensen (1991-2014, frontman and DJ) Helmut Hoinkis (1991-2006, management) Skadi Lange (1991-1995, vocals and instruments) Dea-Li (1996 / 1997, vocals). U96 also had some guest singers like Daisy Dee, Carol Bailey and Lia Lane. U96 started in 1991. Their first big hit was "Das Boot". At first, nobody was interested in releasing the single. But with the help of Alex Christensen's girlfriend at that time the single was released by Polydor. The record went up to position 1 in the German charts, and stayed there for 16 weeks. Other big hits are "I Wanna Be A Kennedy", "Love Sees No Colour", "Love Religion", "Club Bizarre", "Heaven" and "Energie". The style of their first two albums ("Das Boot", 1992 and "Replugged", 1993) was more in the Techno and Electro style. With the release of their third album ("Club Bizarre", 1995) they changed their style completely into the more commercial dance and trance style. In 1998 they tried it again with the in this time popular electro-pop style, but without big success. In 2000 U96 released "Das Boot 2001", a remake of the classic "Das Boot", but with more vocals and a big remix package (Cosmic Gate, DJ Errik, DJ Mellow-D, Blue Nature, Schiller, Avancada). In this year also their Best Of -Album had been released. It did not include "Das Boot". In 2003 U96 made another comeback with the single We Call It Love. But it also had no big success. In March 2006 the new single "Vorbei", featured by Ben, was released. U96 now changed their style from Trance / Hands Up to more commercial Pop. On this production there was only Alex Christensen who produced it, so U96 didn't consist any more of the team Matiz / AC. The new team of U96 consisted of Alex Christensen and Steffen Häfelinger. It's important to note that Alex Christensen, who was U96 frontman for almost 20 years, never sang any classic U96 hits, neither did he do any major sound programming or composing. Most male vocals, including "Love Sees No Colour" and "Night In Motion", were done by Ingo Hauss (his recognizable voice also can be heard on certain Boytronic tracks and post-U96 project called Potemkin). In late 2014 the project was revived by Ingo Hauss and Hayo Lewerentz with Josh Stolten (without Alex Christensen), by releasing a new song called "Planet Earth" (originally as U96Reboot, but the actual release was already under U96). They are also doing live gigs, that consist of new material and remakes of the old U96 tracks, like "Das Boot", "Night In Motion", "Club Bizarre", "Love Sees No Colour", etc. In Fall 2015, U96 released four new singles, which were all later released on The Dark Matter EP : - 19th Oct : "Blood Of The Rose", a remake of one of the Potemkin tracks, - 26th Oct : "Dark Matter" - 2nd Nov : "Human Cosmic" - 9th Nov : "Run With It" A new album has been announced to be released in March 2016.