Milk & Honey

Anne Ross was taken under the wing of producer Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen a year after her 2005 split with the Preluders, a German pop sensation borne of the popular television program Popstars: Das Duell. Under Fahrenkrog-Petersen's guidance, Ross teamed up with his fiancée, the Algerian-born vocalist Manel Filali, to form Milk & Honey. With their slick Euro-dance beats, spicy Arabic pop influences, and multilingual lyrics (sung in English, French, and Arabic), Milk & Honey were essentially groomed as a kind of East-meets-West act, billed on their official website as "Ein phantastischer trip in den Orient mit einer berührenden melodie" ("A fantastic trip to the Orient with a catchy melody"). Their debut single, Habibi, released on Warner in the fall of 2006, performed admirably on the German pop charts, peaking at number 16. The duo's second single, Didi, hit stores the following year. While this single didn't perform nearly as well on the charts, peaking at a humble 38 in Germany, it did little to dissuade Warner from gearing up to release Milk & Honey's first full-length album. That disc, Elbi, was slated to hit stores in the late summer of 2008. ~ Margaret Reges, All Music Guide