How fast they grow. One day they’re a snotty, groovy caterpillar … and then the next, they’re a moody, vantablack butterfly. Sneak-snacking on black metal, sniffing dead screens in post-apocalyptic ruins. I don’t even want to know what this kid is up to when I’m asleep!
And I no longer have to. They’re not a kid anymore. Ugress turns 18 today. November 29th 2018. My baby moth has become a papillon. *wipes a pixellated tear in static rain*
Happy birthday to us! Wooo! Here are some presents!
The very first EP E-Pipe was out on vinyl November 29th, 2000. Today its a free download! The very latest EP Black Anorak was out just a week ago. Free download! Inbetweenest was Reminiscience. (Holy fuck is that 9 years ago.) Well that’s also a free download!
And with the promo code staywithus, ANYTHING in the Bandcamp store is 90% off! That includes the whole discography, which can be yours today for about 5 EUR!
Just add the promo code staywithus at the Bandcamp checkout. Valid until tomorrow.
Also! What is a birthday party without embarassing details on the guest of honour? Haha! Here is a lovely Soundcloud playlist with super early Ugress material, from the years 1999 – 2000. Oh god that production and those clumsy keyboard solos. *cringe emoji*
I had been making tracks on computers like C64 and Amiga for most of the 90ies, and in a few years I might publish THAT embarassement… but at the end of 90ies I got myself a PC, a sampler and some synthesizers, and took the step from hacking music vertically with trackers to producing music horizontically with sequencers, twiddling real knobs, playing keyboards and waiting for those goddamn zip disks, which took forever to load anything. I also started performing live, and sending the music to labels, radio stations and posting in internet forums. Then, stuff actually happened. And here we are.
Wow its been a long, crazy trip and I’m slowly dawning to the fact that … this is actually THE trip.
Since the very first vinyl, Ugress – or side projects sprung out of Ugress – has been my whole life, it is everything I do – and it is also the only thing I CAN do. Some days it feels like the biggest blessing, other days an inscrutable challenge. Most of the time its just hard work, endless airports (like right now) and I love it to death and am eternally grateful that THIS, this is my toil.
The most important fact though, the secret magic infinite energy source behind it all, that I never ever forget… is you. My child Ugress, who is now actually an adult and needs to get a job and start paying rent (*), is only alive, because we have listeners. You.
Thank you for keeping us alive. We’ll be working equally hard for the next 18, and 36, and 1296 years.
(* Actually… Ugress has been paying the rent for both of us since day one so its probably ME that should get my shit together….)
