Portuguese music blog Opus Sound did a review of latest album Reminiscience, and to follow up I also did a long and friendly interview with Miguel, talking about lots of stuff, including Fado, one of my favorite nostalgic music genres.

Portugal has a good place in my heart, I spent some special time there a few years ago. I'm very happy to have my music presented to Portugal, and flattered to be featured on the excellent Opus Sound.

Reminiscience review in Portuguese, and English version (Google Translate).

GMM interview, English.

Ah, excellent, my world domination plans are coming into action!

My own label Uncanny Planet has signed a sub-licensing deal with South-Korean company FeelMusic, one of the largest record companies in South Korea, with focus on importing up-and-coming international artists and placing music in films, TV and ads.

This means most of my music and projects will be promoted and available in South Korea, where iTunes and Spotify et.al. are not available yet.

I very much looking forward to this collaboration, I have always wanted to visit Korea. I am fascinated with how quickly the Koreans have embraced digital and mobile opportunities for music, and in general how wired they are. They're in the future.

I haven't had any albums for distribution there yet, but the Harakiri Martini music video went viral in South Korea first, before anywhere else. A tiny part of me starts to dream of playing live in Seoul. What is a Monday without deceptive illusions of grandeur?

Next live show, and my first show of the decennium, is a new gig in my concert series at Kafe Edvard, February 27th 2010. As usual, lots of Ugress classics and new tracks, and finally, I'm playing live with Shadow Of The Beat again!

I did a few gigs with SOTB  back in 2005 and 2006, around the release of the Nanokaravan debut album. Since then I have written a few tracks for the project over the years, and I've toyed with developing spooky visuals, but haven't played or released anything, except the Shadow Vault which was mostly a compilation of older tracks. Forcing a live show on myself is a good step towards a new release.

I'm not sure how to classify current SOTB, it has equal amounts of sordid organic darkness, frenetic drum and base, massive dubstep, and glitchy industrial horror-noise. The visuals are equally dirty and sordid. I know dubstep is en route to massive sellout these days, but coincidentally, it turns out my superhero skill is a fierce resistance to hypes and trends. So industrial, organic dubstep it is.

I'll be back with more specifics as the date approach.

So here's a report from the last live show of 2009, with Ugress and Ninja 9000 at Kafe Edvard, December 19th. It was a cozy musical triumph, a splendid 8-bit evening, an utter judgement on my marketing skills, and a cold technological nightmare. This could be long, therefore:

The short version:

Musically it worked very well, I played both old Ugress tracks in new versions and completely new tracks, and a set with Ninja 9000 material. The N9K stuff was fantastic fun to play live. There wasn't much people, same as last time. I fail at promotion. It didn't matter right there and then, the atmosphere in the cafe was concentrated and appreciative so I think the music and visuals work. Technically though, several vital pieces of equipment broke down before the show, which made the evening into something completely different than planned, I lost a major video outlet, but nobody noticed anything was wrong.

The long story, with gory details:

This was a psycho-bizarre über-hectic week where one day I see my music performed with a full symphonic orchestra in front of a packed, legendary concert hall and the next day I play live with 8-bit blips and blops at a tiny coffee shop in front of a tiny crowd. I guess world domination grows in mysterious ways.

Background

I didn't sleep much during the last week (not complaining though) - I was traveling, working on several production gigs to make ends meet, social evenings with friends and collaborators, and during hotel nights I was wrapping up new Ninja 900 tracks and preparing the live show visuals. In addition to the usual dual video feed, I was working to include a third video feed, a sort of room-projection-mapping thing, with separate monochrome visuals created to animate the room itself. It was supposed to be a visual über-surprise, during the last set, suddenly the room starts moving and animating, synchronized to the music. We did a preproduction test of this last week and it looked absolutely awesome. Using one or more strong, centralized (movable?) projectors with mapping techniques as a lighting mechanism is the future of live music lightning, I am certain.

But not this time it wasn't. Let me illuminate (harr harr):

Breakdowns

First let-down of the evening - the silly sound company providing the PA system managed to deliver the wrong system, not nearly powerful enough. The cafe is a small place but not THAT small, one does wants one's bass to boom. I don't understand how they managed to screw this up. Delivering the wrong system is just not professional at all and we will not be using them again. Thankfully I have a very talented sound guy who managed to squeeze whatever possible out of the system.

Then a second breakdown of the evening; my Jazzmutant Lemur control surface. HORROR! This is a multitouch control surface, where I control everything from custom built setups. If this unit breaks down, the show itself is in no particular danger, I have muted backups in software just-in-case this happens. If I royally screw up, I can always quickly fall back on preproduced material. As you can see from this photo, the brain of my operation (center) is brain-dead.

I have two laptops in sync and several other controllers, so there's always something that works and lets me do the bare minimum of live performance. However, loosing the Lemur means I loose the Headquarters Of Concert Operations, the performance looses the zest of improvisation. (But probably runs more consistent for the audience since I can't screw up so much...) So it's not mission critical, but annoying.

The unit has now been repaired, thanks to very helpful Jazzmutant support, turned out it was the screen cable that had came loose, and you have to disassemble the whole unit with specific tools to reconnect it. 

However, the THIRD breakdown was terrible terrible terrible:

I am using a Matrox TripleHead2Go, a crap stupid bastard crap bloody idiot numb-nut crap pathetic stupid worthless little crap device that takes a regular screen signal and splits it in three horizontally. One external monitor on your laptop becomes three individual monitors in the real world. This way I can (COULD) have one laptop feeding three video targets, in utter absolute sync; the wall screen, the monitor cluster and the mentioned room projector.

During development and preproduction it worked just as intended, but during soundcheck at the cafe something was wrong - it wouldn't split the signal as usual. I had no idea what was wrong, where to look for errors, and no time to investigate, I just died inside, realized I would loose my PRECIOUS room projection, and had to find a way around. Even worse, with so little time to prepare I had no backup for this unit not working, meaning ALL video was gone, meaning I not only lost the room, I lost all screens!

I had to re-build the live-set on the spot to use two laptops, running separate video, synchronized with wireless network MIDI, which is pretty tight, but risky (they tend to loose connection) and not optimal for video sync, it drifts and flutters. I hadn't had time to create this backup before-hand, so I actually spent the last hour until concert start with setting up new live-sets, one for the wall screen and one for the monitor cluster.

This is why I didn't have time to set up the live-stream as intended. Then more setbacks, after transferring the cluster set to the other laptop I realized this one didn't have Live 8.1 it had Live 8.0 and the set wasn't backwards compatible so then I had to download and update Live, and the process was finished approximately five minutes before concert start. Thankfully, downloading the Live update takes a while so in that window of http activity I managed to throw up the streaming laptop at least for basic video.

Phew! The show finally started, to my absolute surprise almost on time, and with nothing more breaking down during the whole performance.

Concert

First, I played a set of rather loungy, easy and melodic Ugress tracks, where I mostly improvise and have fun on the keys. There were some old tracks in new production, and also some brand new tracks. Then I played a darker and more energetic set of soundtrack-ish Ugress tracks, where the lack of the Lemur becomes more problematic, since I'm less on the keys and more doing effects and samples.

Then there was a costume shift (true! Like a real pop-star!) and doing a Ninja 9000 set. I was really looking forward to this, I had prepared live versions with my new top secret C64 audio effect, and also the above mentioned room projection. The C64 voice effect (mentioned in the LME prod notes) didn't work as well in a live setting as I hoped, I realize they're more of a studio effect. But the 8-bit sounds and beats really works. I've decided to develop more Ninja 9000 live material.

Attendance

Same as last time, not really stadium sized crowds. I really suck at promotion and marketing. Just like last time people actually come up to me after the show and ask why my live shows are secret, they found out by a coincidence, and not sure if it was public, they were afraid they could not come. I am WTF and they are WTF and the whole marketing thing is WTF.

I have the same problem with album and single releases. I manage to reach attentive fans, but not so much the casual ones or those outside there again. I conclude: Promotion is quite simply something I neither can, should or want to do. I spend unhealthy amounts of time and worry on it, and it doesn't seem to matter anyway, hah. My time is certainly spent better developing music and visuals. If this means I have quality shows with little or no attendance, so be it. I have absolutely no problems with that (except financially of course).

Enough with the silly details of economics and marketing, makes me bored just writing about it! I think my concert series works. The music and visual material presents itself very well, even with half of the setup broken. I push myself to finish and publish a new track for each show, and I produce several new live versions and visuals for each performance. My repertoire is growing. I film each show in HD, amassing great footage. I document with photos. The cafe is very satisfied and wants to secure new dates for continuing the concert series. My tech guy had excellent ideas for improving the sound and lights, next time we'll be renting system from my regular respectable dealer.

Conclusion

After two shows I observe: The concert series is a musical and visual success, and a very smart strategic investment for improving myself and produce new material. But it is a financial failure. This is due to promotion. I don't care about those two things so it doesn't matter anyway, hah.

Regarding the next show, I think we will be skipping dates in January, mostly because it is a tough month for live events, but also I need more time to develop new material and wrap up commitments. We're looking at next show sometime February, not sure what to present, but with a proper system it would be delightful to dish out some dark, blood-drippingly fresh new dub-step from Shadow Of The Beat.

The evening was immortalized by my excellent photo-documentarist Eivind Senneset (photos above). I've also put out some shots on Flickr.

There is enough sweetness around these "holy" days. Here is a dirty alternative, a new track: Guilty Culture - live footage video, with edited visuals overlay taken from the live performance setup. Live footage shots from live shows this fall.

HD version available at Vimeo, where you also can download the 1280x720 version.

This is a guilty pleasure track, built mostly for me having fun during the live shows, a hairy tribute to really bad VHS movies from the 80ies, with massive explosions of course. Great fun to play live, I just throw in badass guitars, moving bass and thundering beats and have a good time.

Best wishes for the holidays; download.

The recorded clip is available at ustream.tv/ugress-live.

Live updates:

Saturday Dec 19th: Live streaming of tonights show, starts 2200 CET if everything works.

Update 2130: Lots of stuff broke down I don't have time to organize the streaming properly, the sound is probably gonna suck. I'm sorry. I'll film it though and put it out as soon as I have some time, or if I survive this.

Update Next Day: I managed to remember check the "record" button, so the show was taped. The sound wasn't terribly bad but not good either. The HD cam got some good footage so I'll be editing it down when I have some time, probably later this week.

Update Dec 24th: Removed the embed clip from this page, it eats up load time, you can watch it here.

Ninja 9000 is my chiptune project, where I write and perform music in the epic style of glorious 8-bit video game music. Energetic and adventurous electro, dressed in bubbly bleeps and sharp sounds from the magnificent era of the Commodore 64.

An excellent example is my recent Les Mondes Engloutis cover song, a co-op between Ugress and Ninja 9000.

Chiptunes are on on the rise, there has been a surge in underground culture over the last few years, with dedicated websites, music software and hardware, festivals, academic papers and documentaries. It is amazing, this was an extremely geeky and laughed-out subculture in the 80ies, now it is completely something else. Everything goes around I guess. I am looking forward to tracker music becomes trendy with the kids in 2016.

This coming Saturday, at Kafe Edvard, I perform live with both Ugress and Ninja 9000. I will be presenting new and vintage Ugress tracks with the usual multimedia fireworks, and a set of live Ninja 9000 material, with customized, mashed up video game visuals.

• Ugress Live
• Ninja 9000 Live
• Kafe Edvard, Bergen
• Starts 2200 CET
• Tickets NOK 100,-
• Streamed on www.ugress.com

Ugress feat Ninja 9000 - Les Mondes Engloutis by GMM

New free download, a cover version of the theme to legendary TV-series Les Mondes Engloutis. Also known as Spartakus And The Sun Beneath The Sea, or Arkadia - Reisen Til Jordens Indre.

The original song sounds fantastic, it cannot be out-done. I think to do a cover of this song, it has to be something different, and there should be added a new dimension. So I decided to dress it up as a chiptune, combining my favorite kids TV-show with my favorite computer platform, the Commodore 64.

Ninja 9000 provides delicious retro 8-bit chiptune sounds from the C64, and Ugress adds epic beats and naive robots. Mon français est terrible, but I decided to keep the robot vocals in the language.

Next weekend I play live with both Ugress and Ninja 9000, this is a splendid opportunity to release this collaboration. For the Ninja 9000 live show there will be a cavalcade of 80-ies computer game visuals supporting the music.

Did you know the two previous Ninja 9000 EPs are available for free download?

(Trouble downloading with Soundcloud? Here's a direct link.)

It only took me a half a year to do it, but finally you can now download instrumental versions of Reminiscience vocal tracks.

Seven tracks in highest quality mp3 there is to be had.

You need the physical or digital booklet to access extra album bonus material. If you bought from a digital store that does not deliver the bundled PDF, here is how to get it.

Simply summarized, just send me your purchase receipt and I respond with the cover pdf.

(Thanks to Chris P. for reminding me.)

So last weekend I started my monthly concert series at Kafe Edvard. I have now been analyzing the experience and the video recording. Conclusion: Groovy, but rocky start.

Musically and visually I think it worked pretty well. I played a customized live set of Nebular Spool tracks, with some exclusives, and after a short pause I presented both old and new Ugress tracks, including some unreleased material. Most of it had upgraded visuals, exploiting the delicious wall screen at Kafe Edvard, and the intimate atmosphere works wonders for the second video on smaller screens.

Some tracks worked OK, others not so much, and also some things are fun for me to do and other things not. Frequently I end up spending focus on just keeping things running, that's important but not really interesting. I do think though, the visuals are becoming a very important element of the show, especially when performing without guest musicians.

However, I suck at marketing. Almost nobody came! The audience was great, though, and it didn't matter for the show. However, those who came, many of them told me it was a coincidence they found out I was playing. I have a communication problem. I seem to be able to reach those I can access directly through my own channels (web and mailing-list) but outside that I'm really lost.

So I have to figure out a way to fix that, I'm not expecting to earn money on this series but I'd rather not loose too much either.

So I conclude, playing live again is fun, and there is great potential! I am just not sure how to tap it. For the next show I really have to do something about the marketing bit.

I taped the show with a HD cam, when I have some time free I'll try and edit down a few tracks.

Tomorrow Dec 1st, I will be doing an artist self-presentation.

The presentation is hosted at HKS by BEK (Bergen Center for Electronic Arts). It is part of their monthly series of artist self-presentations.

I'm not quite sure how to present myself and my music, in a real-time, real-life. But I think I will be talking about: My background, my tracker upbringing, my cinematic and musical influences, computers, technology, sampling, creativity, how I approach writing and composing music, my work methods, piracy, digital music future, robots, science. I will also play and demonstrate a selection of unreleased tracks from my dusty archives, for us to marvel at how bad I was back then, and how little I have improved.

I am kind of nervous to present myself in such a setting; it is both very direct and raw but simultaneously also highly distanced and meta.

I'm very used to working alone, intuitively, and then presenting my work as a finished, separate entity. Or here in my web journal I can present written thoughts and ideas. I'm not a very social person and I'm certainly not a realtime person. My live shows are presentations of the music, I do not see them as presentations of ME. Though I understand it probably appears like that to many.

Nevertheless! I do wish I was a scientist, and I balance my intuitive creativity with a pragmatic, realistic approach to realization of this creativity. This is an excellent opportunity to probe and scrutinize into my own art and methods, from my own perspective, potentially observing something new.

I am excited to see what I learn about myself during this process.

It is not possible to stream the event, but I will be taping it. I might up accidentally saying something worth remembering.

• Hordaland Kunstnersentrum (map)
• December 01, 2009
• 1900 CET
• Free entry

My latest album "Shul" is finally available with Spotify, iTunes, Amazon.

Is it just me or is there something wrong with track three in Spotify? It doesn't play here. I tried on two different computers.

Next up I'm looking into getting all the Ugress EPs and individual singles onto these digital services.

My latest Ugress track Robot Army was just featured in the recent Solipsistic Nation podcast Pixicast, hosted by Pixieguts.

Solipsistic Nation is a San Diego, US based, weekly podcast featuring "the very best of all genres of electronic music, only the finest tunes."

This week's cast comes from Pixieguts (Marie Craven), member of the bands Cwtch and PIXSID. She is also the founder of the Palace Network and co-produces the Pixicast with Dave Almgren, also know as Voide. Pixicast is a show that focuses entirely on music that comes from indie and netlabels.

Solipsism, btw, is the theory that the self is all that can be known to exist. Descartes, kind of, I suppose.

Here's a taped performance from the Nebular Spool show last weekend, my dystopic and post-apocalyptic side-project. The track is Inner Transitions, an unreleased and surprisingly energetic track for being Nebular Spool.

So far it has not suited any of the albums, but it does tie nicely into the live show sequence.

You can watch the HD version directly on Vimeo.

This weekend I played live first at Hotel Fugl Fønix in Etne and then a dual show with Nebular Spool and Ugress in Bergen. Here's first a report from Etne.

I love playing in Etne, I love the whole atmosphere of the town. A few years back when I was actively touring, we regularly did gigs there, a show in Etne was always a welcome relief, a place to wind down and eat lots of great food, not being stressed, quite simply have fun. This time, my concert was part of the hotel celebrating 10 year anniversary. I think I've played there every second year since they started. Each time at a different stage or place around or in the hotel, now I played the club scene in the basement. I taped the show but haven't had time to edit and process the recording yet.

Before the show I was guest at a talk show, which was great fun. The audience for the talk show was not the same as for my concert, so most people in the audience had no idea who I was - until the host informed them I was the person behind the Kometkameratene music. Which brought spontaneous applause! I live in a bubble, rarely get out, so I keep being surprised by how popular and well-known the TV series really are. 

I suppose there was couple of talk-show guests that attended the concert afterwards. I wonder what they expected, and how they took to the the bombardment of beats, obscure b-movie horrors and sci-fi-tronic cinematics both on screens and in the music.

I tried both new tracks and old tracks in new versions. Some things worked pretty well and others didn't. I appreciate the knowledge, always do, knowledge is king. I'm doing mental notes all the way of what works and how to change things. But it still sucks being on stage playing something you realize is crap, and observing the reaction in the crowd. On the other side, whenever a version really hits the floor, the experience is the absolute opposite.

I want to write and perform better live music, and the only way to do that is by actually doing it. Which is why I have launched the new live show series at Edvard, where I played the premiere show the next day. I also taped that one, I'll edit the footage and type out a report later this week.

Photos are from the Etne stage before the show.