GLOBAL KRYNER is the band that created a Eurovision Song Contest storm in 2005 which caused their country to withdraw from the competition for a year.

In 2005, after performing their song, Y Asi, first of all the 25 contestants in a Eurovision Song Contest semi-final in the Ukraine, the Austrian sextet finished 21st with too few votes to progress.

The Austrian national broadcaster, ORF, was so incensed with their poor showing, which it felt didn’t do justice to the quality of the song or performance, that it announced its withdrawal from the competition, branding the annual shindig “an absurd competition in which Austrian musical tradition means nothing”.

Happily, Austria returned in 2007, and Global Kryner took the result on the chin and have continued to take their particular brand of pop-punk-polka to the world.

The band – clarinet player Christof Spork, bass trombonist, singer and yodeller Sebastian Fuchsberger, guitarist Edi Koehldorfer, trumpet player Karl Rossmann, accordion player Anton Sauprugl, and jazz vocalist Sabine Stieger – have released three CDs: Global Kryner, Krynology, and Weg, on the cover of which they appear naked, but covered in paint.

Their music, they claim, “acts as an antidepressant, painkiller and dementia blocker”. It consists of a combination of Austrian oompah, Cuban rhythm and yodelling, and they are famous for their cover versions of well-known songs from a wide variety of genres.

The group interprets songs as varied as Over the Rainbow, Like a Virgin, or Eye of the Tiger, as well as pieces by Cole Porter, Tina Turner or The Beatles, in clever arrangements packed with changes of tempo, on accordion, clarinet, trumpet, guitar and trombone.

One writer said: “With their exuberant musicality, Global Kryner have long since advanced from the level of parody. They invent music from existing treasures, build bridges between jazz club, beer tent and pop stage, for the pure love of sound. Their kingdom of joy has no boundaries.

Global Kryner play us dizzy and have great fun in doing so.”

■ Global Kryner, Saturday July 11, Part of Durham Miners' Gala.