In 1971 Coca-Cola was teaching the world to sing in perfect harmony. Three years before this, however, the lesser known Afri-Cola took a somewhat more dissonant approach...





These bizarre 1968 Afri-Cola commercials were directed, and scored, by the multi-talented German advertising guru / designer / artist / photographer / musician and all-round renaissance man Charles Wilp.





Unsurprisingly for a man dubbed the "Prince of Space" and an "artonaut", and who built a UFO on the roof of his home near Düsseldorf, Wilp was obsessed with space and it was his fascination with intergalactic travel that inspired him to shoot Marianne Faithfull, Amanda Lear, Donna Summer and Marsha Hunt through ice-crystal covered windows.





Wilp's space-age soundtrack may have lacked the saccharine hook of "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing" but in fairness he'd already moved on from easy-listening having recorded an album of psychedelic lounge pop in 1965 - Charles Wilp Fotografiert Bunny - featuring such tantalising track names as "Beautiful Bald Women", "Purple Playmate", "Pink Carpet", "Silky Stockings" and "Size 178-79-55-91". The album gained cult status due to the fact that it never appeared in shops. Wilp had been commissioned by a group of companies he'd helped brand and the 500,000 copies that were pressed were handed out to their lucky employees.





Wilp traded on his avant-garde credentials when he sought out, and scored, a collaboration ("It's Charles Time") with a proto-drone-rock band that inspired the Velvet Underground and, later, The White Stripes. [According to Wikipedia The White Stripes named Monks as one of their key influences, noting that "their melodies were pop destructive".]  Monks were American GI's based in Germany in the 60's who started by playing garage rock but quickly evolved into a more experimental "anti-Beatles". The band received wider recognition in 2006 with the release of the acclaimed documentary "Monks - The Transatlantic Feedback". Look out for Charles Wilp stealing the show in his must-have loungewear spacesuit. Respect...





Charles Paul Wilp: 15 September 1932, Berlin – 2 January 2005, Düsseldorf.