EPK: Breaking up with future thru dystopian EDM

Bandcamp – Spotify – Soundcloud – Apple Music – Youtube or download full album mp3.

The future is broken. Technology has triumphed. The machines and their algorithms in the clouds, have already won. We are the product. But in a desolate, abandoned and post-apocalyptic landscape of broken devices, empty batteries, and dead screens… a black angel… rises.

The Wrong Future is the 7th album from Ugress, a project that for almost 20 years have delivered dark, dystopian and dancy electronica to countless clubs, stages, festivals, films, TV shows and video games. Ugress has consistently presented a playful and mad-sciencey retro-flirt with “the gloomy future” – and oh, suddenly, that actually happened.

The Wrong Future is a heartbroken love letter to a naive dream of quirky B-movie sci-fi futures… that has become our reality. The album is released digitally and on vinyl on April 13th, through the artists own indie label Uncanny Planet. Distribution by Phonofile / The Orchard / Musikkoperatørene.

Music videos

Lost in virtual realities, pining for the clouds – music video for “The Little Cloud…”

Breaking up with the future – music video for Dreamstroyer.

About the tracks

 “There Is No Here, Here” feat. The Internet – the opening track is a bombastic tribute to early, dark 90ies techno, featuring a huge crowd-sourced Internet choir. Fans, followers and strangers around the globe contributed thousands of voices through an online audio campaign for the track vocals. The song originates from an award-winning titular media-art performance, where Ugress creates and performs music videos live on stage, questioning our increasingly screen-based, networked lives.

“Dreamstroyer” is a dramatic and cartoony break-up track, combining 80ies videogame sounds with contemporary steppy and trappy beats. The music video is a time-travelling montage where Ugress appears on screens and devices of the future in sci-fi films, trying to flag a struggling relationship…

“Mending A Tear In The Fabric Of The Night” is a sweet, uptempo triphop-ballad, with lullaby vocals by Norwegian folk singer Annlaug Børsheim. The track plucks on nostalgic strings from every recent decade: Dubby basses from 10’s, breakbeats from the 00’s, ethnic world samples from the 90’s, videogame melodies from the 80’s and warm synthesizers from the 70’s.

“Better Living Through Algorithms” – an obvious hommage to a well-known 90’s sample-based party artist and their reference to that culture’s fuel. Today, the machines, their algorithms and manicured playlists control and fuel our tomorrow’s parties.

“Dead In A Dreamweb”, featuring Siri, Alexa and Cortana, is a montage of dubby cyber-punk pixels and sexy virtual assistants, wondering about acid-blooded monsters and their dreams.

“The Little Cloud Who Wouldn’t And The Rainbow Who Couldn’t” wraps up the album, and features a huge cloud of hundreds of Youtube recordings, from choirs whom grippingly sing an Icelandic hymn from the 11th century, “ Hear me, maker in the clouds”. This final track and its swarm of samples, expresses perhaps best the growing unease of today: What actually is up there above the rainbow…. might not be what we dreamt about.

About the artist

Ugress (Gisle Martens Meyer) is an award-winning Norwegian artist, starting with their first, self-released vinyl back in 2000 and now grown to work as a media artist, composer, producer and performer in both the pop-music and the contemporary art field throughout Europe. Their works have a pop-musical, electronic and cinematic aesthetic, with music and live visuals as basic elements, exploring new technologies, digital culture, social media and futuristic sci-fi, and how these fields affect us as individuals and society.

Ugress have made productions, comissions and projects for a wide range of Norwegian and European institutions, among them Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Carte Blanche National Dance Ensemble, The Norwegian National Ballett, Norwegian National Broadcaster, Festspillene i Bergen / Bergen International Festival, Rikskonsertene / Concerts Norway, SONY Computer Entertainment, BIT20 Ensemble, Tanzhaus NRW Düsseldorf, Norwegian Cinematheque Society, Marseille European City Of Culture 2013, Norwegian National Broadcaster Orchestra, Hiroshima Barcelona, Stavanger Concert Hall, InShadow Lisboa Festival For Cinema and dance, MarteLIVE Media Festival Roma, ZKM Karlsruhe, Deichmanske National Library, Oslo, Norway.

Media