Altona

1. ALTONA Altona is a German band, founded in 1971 in Hamburg suburbs as reincarnation of krautrock band Thrice Mice. Dropping former band's classical edge in preference for a jazzier front on their debut ,Altona played a lively fusion that crossed many boundaries, but kept the Blodwyn Pig feel that dominated the early Thrice Mice recordings. Mixing excellent early jazz fusion with psychedelic rock elements album's music is a real gem.

In contrast, their second album CHICKENFARM, disappointed as it saw a mellowing of style, to funky edged jazz-rock with blues and soul tendencies, and an indistinctive Anglo-American type brassy-rock sound. A few Altona members later reappeared in the obscure band Dirty Dogs.

(On the picture is thrash metal band from Turkey with a same name.)

2. ALTONA was founded in 1996, and initial compositions were based on a pure thrash metal sound. They performed in many venues and festivals between 1997 and 2000, whil e recording a first EP "Alarm of the End" in 1999. In 2001, they attended Rockstation festival in Ankara, and were broadcast on TRT's Rock Market television show.
From 2000 onward, the musical route started to change, toward more progressive heavy metal, with eastern themes and thrash rhythms. In 2004, compositions from this period resulted in a studio album simply titled "Altona". Initially nine tracks were planned for this album, but to retain musical integrity, all older compositions were removed - leaving five compositions and an intro and outro.
Each track on the album has it's own theme, a story in itself. A good example is "City of Zeugma", the true story about a city that is now mostly underwater.

The year 2008 will see live performances of Altona and hopefully a second studio album.