| B i o g r a p h y |
Space Night
(full title: Space Night - All-Tag Nachts im Bayrischen Fernsehen) is
the name of a German television program of the Bayerischer Rundfunk
(BR). It is a mixture of chill-out-music and records of the earth seen
from space intermitted by informative broadcasts.
Space Night started in 1994 as an alternative to the test card that was broadcast on BR at night until this time. The idea originated in the fact that the German satellite ASTRO-SPAS (see STS-80) had recorded many hours of video footage. The BR edited this material and added downtempo music. They didn't want to show the same pictures 7 days a week so NASA and ESA was asked to provide more footage, which they did.
The broadcast quickly turned into a cult, at raves in the mid-90s it wasn't unusual to show the images of Space Night on big tv-screens. Early in the morning after the rave it was often used to calm down, especially from 1996 and later as Alex Azary (a European chill-out-DJ) provided more electronic background music. This was a logical step that originated from Alex Azary because he headed the Club XS in Frankfurt where this type of music was played and Space Night was shown (albeit the playback was a little bit slower than in the original program). The images did fit well to the new music-genre and Alex thought it would be a good idea to show it to the people at the BR. A meeting in Munich followed where he could convince them to try something new. The soundtrack is available on CD, the mixing from volume 2 and on is done by the German music label Electrolux. A DVD titled Best of Earth-Views is also available.
Since the 25th anniversary of the first human landing on the moon the original version of the broadcast of the ARD is shown at the exact time of the original airing.
At the 40th anniversary of the Perry Rhodan series in 2001 there was a 'Perry Rhodan-Space Night'. Cover art by the artist Johnny Bruck (who produced the cover artwork for Perry Rhodan) was shown with modern techniques to animate still pictures, there were galaxies, planets, spaceplanes, men und aliens - a visual journey through the Perry Rhodan universe with the known music of Space Night. Following the broadcast, which was repeated for several weeks, a dvd with the title space night presents: Perry Rhodan 40th Anniversary - Special Sci-Fi Edition and a double album with the music was created.