Ghoststorm (Extended Edition)

Like the replicants in Blade Runner, the tracks on Ghoststorm are nostalgic for a past that never existed. Their emotions spring from artificially implanted memories. There is the theme song to an 80’ies anime TV-show that never existed, there is a spaghetti western where obscure characters shimmer on the edge of focus, there are elegant ballrooms filled with dancing dust and the contours of wuxia fights choreographed in the fluttery waves of VHS tracking.

The music is created from thousands of samples from all of musical history, shaped through the deep dreams of artificial networks – the sounds are remade by machine understanding. The result is a sonic maelstrom of cultural fragments, swirling forever in an Escher-like labyrinth on the verge of recognition: “…but isn’t that? …“.

Ghoststorm is the third and final release in Ugress’ dark future trilogy of releases. It is dystopian and cinematic music with a melancholic edge, echoing a subconscious dawning: We live our lives in apps, devices and social media. We share only our edited memories, a filtered life that never happened, and aspire to exist in this reality of manicured stories.

Living through screens, we are ghosting ourselves. We become replicants.

Ugress is a Norwegian electronic music by Norwegian media artist Gisle Martens Meyer. The project has several gold-selling albums and national music award nominations behind them, has also been awarded for it’s highly cinematic and visual stage show performed at European festivals for art, technology and media, where the artist creates hyper-real music videos live on stage. The music being highly cinematic, is frequently licensed to films, TV, stage productions and video games.

Martens Meyer works as an artist and composer based in Berlin and Oslo and has created works and productions for a wide selection of Norwegian and international institutions: BIT Teatergarasjen, SONY Computer Entertainment Europe, Festspillene i Bergen, NRK Norwegian National Broadcaster, Norwegian National Ballett, Carte Blanche, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, BIT 20 Ensemble, Stavanger Concert Hall, Tanzhaus NRW Düsseldorf, ZKM Kalrsruhe, Spektrum Berlin, Theatre Bernardines Marseille, InShadow Lisbon, MarteLIVE Roma, Sala Hiroshima Barcelona.

Ghoststorm is released August 23rd 2019 on Uncanny Planet Records / The Orchard.
Ugress performs live at Ghoststorm release parties in Berlin (Aug 29) and Oslo (Aug 30).
Previous releases in the “dark future” trilogy are The Wrong Future and Black Anorak from 2018.