Photograph courtesy of Rudi Doombaar
One of the best albums to come our way of late is the debut of Ulrika Spacek, The Album Paranoia. While Krautrock-esque cycles of repetition may have felt a little well-worn in recent years, the London-based five-piece galvanise them afresh with aerial melodies and twinned-voice harmonies wed to guitars that either bristle with distortion or ring in clanging chimes. The band have now announced that they’ll be putting it out on February 5, 2016, through Tough Love Records in Europe and Lefse Records in the States, and to mark said news, have kindly given us a first spin of the new single ‘She’s A Cult’. The imprint of cited influence Sonic Youth is present in the Sister-era switchbacks between knotty entanglements of clean arpeggios and abrasive crunch, and these run alongside the kind of glorious discord peddled by Broken Social Scene and the vaulting blocks of chords on Pavement’s ‘Kennel District’. In short, pretty fucking brilliant:
The band comprises a pair of Rhys, Edwards and Williams, who we’re told formed Ulrika Spacek in one night in Berlin before honing the concept further back in London, recording what would become …Paranoia in their shared house, a former art gallery pleasingly named KEN. The live set-up has them joined by three more members, who have been playing together at their series of club nights, Oysterland. They’ve got two dates coming up in London next month, playing Unit 6 in Hackney Wick on December 5 and the next Oysterland night, at The Victoria on December 17. Head to their website for updates, while you can put in pre-orders for the LP here.
