KRANK were founded in late 1990 and played their first show in September 1991. The band is based in Cologne, in the midwest of Germany. KRANK is: Guido Moebius (vocals); Gunnar Semrau (drums); Harald Koenigstein and Bernd Wilberg (guitars) and Marco Trovatello (bassguitar). The name KRANK wasn't chosen for its meaning but for its hard sound (the english term for 'krank' as an adjective would be 'ill') - if you're a native english speaker: spell the 'A' in 'KRANK' like most of our british friends would do and you've got a good feeling of what the lyrics sound like.

KRANKs Music is odd guitarpop: mostly quite noisy and jangly, always melodic, but never insignificant. All songs are common compositions of all five band members. The songs never take too long and there is no improvisation. Only thing really counting for KRANK is the optimal translation of ideas to a clear popsong. For this KRANK stops at nothing. Music, lyrics, sound are equivalent and form an integrated whole - or exactly not...

Concerning the lyrics KRANK try to avoid actual topics and clear comments. Most statements are made by impressions, comparisons, associations. Everything has to be taken serious, but it isn't always meant serious...

Over the past years KRANK played quite a lot of shows, mostly in and around Cologne, Duesseldorf, Bonn etc... mainly in Nordrhein-Westfalen, which is located in the midwest of Germany. There also have been a lot of recordings, from 4-Track-stuff to 8 & 16 track to 24 track. KRANK prefer the 8-track recording sessions in their practice room in spring 1995... which were finally pressed on vinyl with their 7" EP Nullschleife, released by their own label KNARK records. The rest of the stuff never made it to discs (the last EP Kaltprofil was canceled because of financial problems), but there are some appearances on compilation cd's: EMI (which sucks... absolutely over-produced, wanted to promote some young bands to brush up their image) & Finlayson (who recorded 20 bands with 10 mins each live in one evening at the Underground, Cologne). Kaltprofil has become a tape, Retrovisor is another tape, available via mailorder directly from the band (like the EP).

Also KRANK made some music for a theatre play (Godot '96) in Cologne and had some other side projects, e.g. SYMBIOSE, performed for the BALLROOM BLITZ festival in Cologne in November 1995.

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