Tomte (band)

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Tomte
Origin	Hamburg, Germany
Genre(s)	Indie Rock
Years active	1991–present
Label(s)	Grand Hotel van Cleef
Website	Official website
Members
Thees Uhlmann Dennis Becker Oliver Koch Timo Bodenstein Max Schröder
Former members
Christian „Stemmi“ Stemmann

Tomte is a German-speaking indie band from Hamburg. Their music is described as guitar pop with some punk influences and may be considered to be a part of the “Hamburger Schule” (Hamburg indie “school”) on the basis of the band Tocotronic's influence on their work. Singer, guitarist Thees Uhlmann even worked as a roadie for Tocotronic's "K.O.O.K."-Tour and wrote the book "Wir Könnten Freunde Werden..." (We Could Become Friends...) about it.

Tomte's first EP was entitled "Blinkmuffel", which came out in 1996. Two years later, Tomte released their first full length album, "Du weißt, was ich meine" ("You Know What I Mean"). Following the trend of releasing an album every two years, "Eine sonnige Nacht" ("A Sunny Night") was released in 2000. After the release, former bass-player Christian Stemmann left the band.

Tomte's breakthrough album, "Hinter all diesen Fenstern" ("Behind All These Windows"), was released in 2003. It contained two singles, "Schreit den Namen meiner Mutter" ("Scream My Mother's Name") and "Die Bastarde, die dich jetzt nach Hause bringen" ("The Bastards That Bring You Home Now"), respectively.

Their latest album, Buchstaben über der Stadt (“Letters above the City”) came out in early 2006. It was one of the best selling German albums of 2006. The first single was Ich sang die ganze Zeit von dir ("I sang of you all the time"). Other singles from this album were "New York" and "Norden der Welt" ("North of the World").