(Indie, Pop, Classical) Christian Flake Lorenz (Rammstein) - Flake Feiert Weihnachten (incl. collabs with members of Die Ärzte (Arzte), Knorkator, In Extremo, Tausend Tonnen Obst, Doro Pesch, etc) (2024), MP3, 320 kbps

Об исполнителе/группе

Christian "Flake" Lorenz (German: [ˈkʁɪsti̯a(ː)n ˈflaːkə ˈloːʁɛnts]; born 16 November 1966) is a German musician. He is best known as the keyboardist in Neue Deutsche Härte band Rammstein, as well as the main composer of the band along with guitarist Richard Kruspe. He was also a member of the East German punk band Feeling B. Lorenz has released a solo album named Flake feiert Weihnachten, which consists of covers of popular Christmas songs.
Career
Feeling B
Main article: Feeling B
In 1983, at age 16, Lorenz began to play in the band Feeling B with Paul Landers and Aljoscha Rompe, a Swiss singer living in East Berlin. He stayed with the band for about ten years. Feeling B started out firmly grounded in the underground punk scene.[1]
Lorenz lived in an apartment with Landers during their early years. When they were not playing gigs, they would sell jackets made from cut-up bed sheets and dusters on the black market. Two jackets a month meant as much money as an average salaried worker.[citation needed] "It was quite easy to make a living; not to work and stay out of trouble," said Landers, "You only got problems if you were caught."[citation needed]
The group disbanded in the mid-1990s. On special occasions, the band members would get together for concerts at punk festivals, until Rompe died in November 2000 of an asthma attack.
Rammstein
Main article: Rammstein
In 1994, Till Lindemann, Richard Kruspe, Oliver Riedel and Christoph Schneider entered and won the Berlin Senate Metro beat contest that allowed them to professionally record a four track demo. Paul Landers formally joined the band, followed by Lorenz. He was initially reluctant to join his five bandmates and had to be pestered into becoming a member of Rammstein, as he thought they would be too boring.[citation needed] Eventually, he agreed to join, and the group began work on their first album, Herzeleid (Heartache).
In early live performances of the song "Bück dich" ("Bend down" or "Bend over"), Lorenz and vocalist Till Lindemann engaged in simulated sodomy with a liquor-squirting dildo. On 23 September 1998, in Worcester, Massachusetts (USA) Lindemann and Lorenz were arrested and charged with lewd and lascivious behavior. A statement from Sergeant Thomas Radula of the Worcester Police Department stated that Lindemann was simulating sex with Lorenz onstage "using a phallic object that shot water over the crowd". They were held and released the following day on US$25 bail. After months of legal debate, they were fined US$100.
Until 2002, Lorenz would "surf" the audience in an inflatable rubber dinghy during the performance of "Seemann" ("Seaman"). Riedel took his place in 2002. According to Lorenz, the change occurred because he was injured too often. During a 2001 concert in St. Petersburg, Lorenz was tipped out of the boat by the crowd and almost completely undressed.[citation needed] Despite this, Lorenz returned to riding the dinghy for Rammstein's 2009 tour during the performance of "Haifisch" ("Shark").
Lorenz in his band costume (2009)
During a concert in Gothenburg, Sweden on 30 July 2005, Till Lindemann suffered a knee injury when Lorenz accidentally ran into him with the Segway he rides during the performance of "Amerika" ("America"). This caused concerts scheduled in Asia to be cancelled.
In 2005, Lorenz suffered from mumps, causing concerts in South America to be cancelled.
In January 2012, Lorenz, along with Lindemann, was interviewed by heavy metal anthropologist Sam Dunn for the VH1 Classic series Metal Evolution, on the topic of shock rock.[2]
Personal life
Lorenz has been divorced once and has five children.[3] On 12 September 2008, Lorenz married artist Jenny Rosemeyer, who provided the whistling for Rammstein's song "Roter Sand". He has a brother who is four years older. Lorenz is an amateur painter[citation needed] and likes classic cars. He has a Mercedes and is involved in the vintage car hire business.[4] In November 2011 Lorenz's house was set on fire. The police managed to identify and capture the arsonist, a 28-year-old male with a criminal record who crashed his car nearby while fleeing from the scene.[5]
Nicknames
Lorenz commonly goes by the nicknames "Flake" (pronounced as "Flak-eh" in German, derived from the Viking village in which the Vicke Viking series of children's books take place) and "Doktor". "Doktor" came about because at one point he wanted to be a surgeon, but he was unable to study to become one because of his refusal to join the East German military. In a 16 December 2000 interview, he stated that "Flake" is his proper name.[6]
Religion and politics
Lorenz has stated "I disapprove of religions which are made into rigid institutions. I also think that religious fanaticism and missionary work are dangerous."[7]
Lorenz has criticized the United States which, in a 2001 interview, he called a "sick and decadent country with no culture". However, in the same interview, he stated: "I prefer playing in the USA [over Germany] because the attitude to music is more relaxed [in America]," and also opined that he favored the American city of Seattle when touring.[8]
On 5 October 2005, Lorenz appeared briefly on Deutsche Welle. When asked how he felt about the reunification of Germany, he said he misses the way things were then. "Even if the GDR survived, I still would've stayed a musician. The increased size of the world also brought the danger of being compared to all of the international acts. The bands which were in the east were the only ones there, and if you were successful there, you were successful. I miss the simplicity. You went into a bar, ordered a beer, and you got a beer!... They didn't ask if you wanted... with a head or without a head, foam top or bottom... It really gets on my nerves having all of these choices I really don't want". In 2014, in an essay titled "I'm missing the GDR" Flake Lorenz stated "I miss the GDR even today. More so than the bands from that time."[9]
In a 2014 interview with Rolling Stone, Lindemann stated that "Flake is still a citizen of the GDR, and he will die a citizen of the GDR".[10] In a 2019 interview with Metal Hammer, he recalled life in East Germany as "free of trouble and pressure, we all had enough money to live".[11]

Об альбоме

Flake feiert Weihnachten is the debut album by Flake Lorenz. It was released on 22 November 2024.
4 December 2024
The album was made available for pre-order on 7 November 2024.
Signed copies of all versions of the album (MC, CD, LP) were available exclusively to LIFAD members.
The album is not a pure solo album by Flake, as it also features three songs (Freu' Dich (Leise rieselt der Schnee), Tausend Sterne sind ein Dom and Es ist ein Ros entsprungen) on which Flake is not participating at all.
The album had its own website which presented the following text:
Christmas is hell. It starts with the gingerbread that melts away on the shelves at Netto in late summer, the civil war-like conditions on Sundays when the shops are open, the terrible music and the cloying films and ends with the mendacious talk about love and peace. And then you still need presents.
Whilst the children are being showered with plastic rubbish from China, it's incredibly difficult for the adults, i.e. my wife, to find something suitable. ‘We're not giving each other anything this year!’ Haha, that sounds good, but I never want to see those disappointed faces on Christmas Eve again. By chance, I recorded some piano pieces for a film at the end of last year and still had some time. So I recorded a Christmas song and quickly sang it myself. It was supposed to be a present for my wife, and I'm most happy with the children's home-made curiosities. Illuminated spectacle holders or something like that. Unfortunately, I don't have the patience. Why should you actually give presents for birthdays and Christmas? Don't you like your loved ones just as much on the other days? And I can't really put a song like that on the gift table.
In any case, I played the song to my wife that very evening, telling her that it was a Christmas present. I think she was pleased, at any rate as a young modern woman she immediately put the song on the Internet and soon the first comments came flooding in. One user, or whatever it's called, said that if there was an album of it, he would buy it. That was enough of an incentive for me and I sat down at the piano again to record the songs I knew. Luckily, I still had the songbook from the Christmas carol sing at Union, a Berlin football club. The lyrics were in there.
When I listened to the result, I was a little disappointed myself, my voice didn't sound that appealing in the long run. So I asked some of my colleagues and friends if they would sing a song for me. Of course, nobody had been waiting for this question and so most of them didn't have time. Others understandably wanted nothing to do with Christmas. I actually think the songs are terrible too. But what's the saying? Don't complain, do better!
And then I found a few guests who enjoyed taking part: Joey Kelly, Doro Pesch, Stumpen from Knorkator, Tausend Tonnen Obst, Andrea Hüber-Rhone, Micha from In Extremo, Jenny Rosemeyer, Käptn Peng, Icke & Er and Farin Urlaub. I need that now too, but maybe more people will come and we'll do a second part. Christmas always comes round, there's nothing you can do.
Thank you and best regards Flake
According to this text, the version of Leise rieselt der Schnee by Flake, which was released on Rammstein's social media[1] on 10 December 2023, was originally a Christmas gift to his wife, who released it on the internet. After reading a comment that someone would buy an entire album of Flake singing Christmas songs, Flake started to record more songs on piano.
On 7 November 2022, Stumpen posted about the album on his social media including the following text:[2]
Flake has re-recorded, or had re-recorded, a few beautiful Christmas songs with some musicians and people like me. I was allowed to donate my favourite Christmas song from the GDR to him, which once moved my mum to tears. And anyone who is interested in this must and can then probably…
All profits from the album will be donated to Die Arche.
As part of the album's promotion, the game Flakes Weihnachtsgrüße was launched on 1 December 2024.
Competition
On 12 November 2024, a competition was announced for which people had to find two Flake feiert Weihnachten-themed cars in Berlin, take a photo with them and post the results onto Instagram including the tagging of @christianlorenz and #flakefeiertweihnachten[3]. The first pair of coordinates were shared on 13 November, at 11:00 CET[4], with the second batch posted on 18 November, at 10:00 CET[5]. The following day, the validity of the second pair got extended to 24 November instead of 22 November[6].

Состав

Features
The albums has a total of ten different guest musicians. Some of them appeared in the Rammstein cosmos before.
Icke & Er: Berlin-based rap-duo. Flake joined them during a concert on 11 November 2016.
Jenny Rosemeyer: Visual arts artist. She is also Flake's wife. Jenny previously did the whistles in Roter Sand and Liese.
Farin Urlaub: ⅓ of German band "Die Ärzte." Also active as a solo artist.
Käptn Peng: Known to Rammstein fans as Robert Gwisdek, the director for the music videos for Zeit and Angst. He also directed the upcoming short film Tag mit Mutter, in which Till is an actor.
Tausend Tonnen Obst: Punk band from the GDR. Formed in 1988, disbanded in 1995.
Stumpen: Singer of Knorkator. Till featured in their video for Du nich.
Andrea Hüber-Rhone: She was a member of the GDR bands Frechheit and Keine Ahnung, which both also featured later Rammstein members.
Michael Robert Rhein: Singer of In Extremo. His band can also be seen in the movie Achtung! Wir kommen.
Doro Pesch: German rock singer, active since 1980.
Joey Kelly: Together with Till Lindemann he released the three books Yukon (2017), Amazonas (2020), and Der Rhein (2024). In 2020 he featured together with Flake in an episode of Durch die Nacht.