Santiano

Santiano sit at an unlikely crossroads: a band from Schleswig-Holstein whose songs fold together rock, Irish folk, sea shanty and schlager. Their name is taken from Hugues Aufray's song of the same title, a fitting nod to the maritime themes running through their material. Across the 2010s they repeatedly reached the top of the German album charts, and their releases also placed high in Austrian and Swiss listings.

The project began with Flensburg producer Hartmut Krech, who runs the Elephant Music label. Their debut album, Bis ans Ende der Welt, reached number one in Germany after its 2012 release. That year they toured Europe, playing the Wacken Open Air festival, and a live CD/DVD of the show followed in November. They took Echo awards for folk music in 2013 and 2014, opened for Helene Fischer's 2013 summer tour, and followed up with Mit den Gezeiten, another German chart-topper. In 2014 they entered Unser Song für Dänemark, the national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest, and were eliminated in Round 2. Von Liebe, Tod und Freiheit, released in May 2015, gave them a third German number one.