UMA, are an experimental avant-garde, electronic pop duo from Berlin. Mixing deep electronic rhythms & bass sounds with hauntingly beautiful choir like vocal chants.
“O child, do not practice austerities!”

UMA are a new and amazing experimental avant-garde, electronic pop duo. Based in Berlin, Ella and Florian (Flo) Zwietnig, are husband and wife no less, having met in a bar, fell in love and got married, they decided to put their musical minds together. Their aim, ‘to sonically and lyrically capture the most elusive everyday moments’.

Their stunning three track vinyl debut dwells between melodic sound-tinkering avant-garde and soothing catchiness. Mixing deep electronic rhythms and bass sounds with the hauntingly beautiful choir like vocal chants of Ella.
Written in Berlin and Los Angeles, it features notable guest musicians, the legendary, Silver Apples and acclaimed Japanese field recording artist, Yosi Horikawa.

Forming UMA in late 2011, Ella and Flo locked themselves in the studio and started working on their ‚’sound’. Recording these sessions with an array of vintage equipment and modern production tools, this was an intense experience for them, in terms of, not only being married, but both having quite strong views and personalities when it comes to creative expression, which could have been very challenging. However both were delighted with the results and just how natural and organic the process had actually been.

Late 2011, also saw Ella invited to take part as a student at the Red Bull Music Academy (RBMA) in Madrid, Spain, a once in a lifetime opportunity that coincided with yet another amazing opportunity, to play their first live show with the legendary Silver Apples. An experience, that, to their great surprise, not only saw Simeon (Silver Apples) becoming an instant fan, but his agreeing to feature on Drop Your Soul.
Ella grew up in the middle of nowhere, spending her early life studying classical music and singing in choirs. When she eventually ventured into the city, she found herself drawn into the thriving DIY and electronic music scene and began to eagerly explore. Flo grew up in suburbia and taught himself to play guitar, learning by covering rock bands. The mid 90’s saw him buy a computer, which started a life long obsession with producing and recording music. Their collective influences span classical to Throbbing Gristle, by way of Bjork, Laurie Anderson, Bowie, Beck and Animal Collective, to name but a few.

Tonfedd Oren is Welsh for Orange Wavelength and is the latest musical collaboration between Rhys Williams and John Brenton and is their self-titled debut single on Enraptured. “We consciously set out to make something genuinely interesting and uplifting,” says Williams. “We’d love this to be a lot of people’s favourite record.”

Williams has been sporadically making multi-layered guitar instrumentals under the name Gofodwyr, which amongst others, briefly gained the attention of Huw Stephens on Radio Cymru. Brenton has been making quirky folktronica as Ojn, Landshipping and John Peel favourites, Metrotone, for a number of years. Tonfedd Oren sees them merging the two sounds together.

Williams and Brenton met when they were students in Aberystwyth, Williams being a veteran of several Welsh language bands, none of which took themselves too seriously. Recognising a similar taste in music, they started swapping 7” singles from Welsh post-punk bands (“I think I learnt 50% of the Welsh I know through deciphering Datblygu lyrics”, says Brenton), post-C86 indie and cassettes of obscure guitar bands from America’s Pacific Northwest. They then started recording together on a 4-track cassette machine and released singles and compilation tracks under the name Southville on Brighton-based Pillarbox Red Records, before parting company to explore other musical avenues.

Having stayed friends over the years, Williams and Brenton concluded that it was high time they worked together on something new, Tonfedd Oren is the fruit of that labour.

It showcases 24 one-minute electronic tracks celebrating the intimacy between man and machine, exploring the space between the inside and the outside, somewhere between the known and the unseen.

This is music from a world where psychedelia, TV soundtracks, bleeps and sine waves permeate the atmosphere. It’s a world where memories of long, hot summer days and tea before bedtime collide with recollections of restless nights, twisted and uptight. Safe in the knowledge everything’s gonna be alright.

A world where the Yardbirds and Miles Davis provide the inspiration for song titles (Here ‘Tis and On The Corner anyone?), where the ghosts of Delia Derbyshire and Bob Newman get it on.

Data70 on Soundcloud

Clearly besotted with Radiophonic and library texture and innovative naivety but given a wholly contemporary sheen. Both protagonists have a deep reaching background in psychedelic drone and coupled with Bob’s dancefloor work as West Norwood Cassette Library, that’s a lot of influence to pack into such subtly restrained and exquisitely composed miniatures.

FACT Magazine

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In the mix, courtesy of 2562 / A Made Up Sound on his recent appearance for Ninja Tune’s Solid Steel Radio Show.

LISTEN HERE

Ekoplekz

Juno Plus Podcast

Static peeks out of a porthole into deep space.

Wire Magazine

Good-looking and great-sounding…. few have actually made anything that sounds like it could be modern-day library music.

Simon Reynolds, Blissblog

Spacey interludes with imaginations fixed firmly in an age when freedom through technology seemed like a promising ideal.

Warpmart

Beautiful, melodic, experimental, electronic miniatures… think Eno, Cluster, Sonic Boom etc.

Rough Trade

James Brooks a.k.a Land Observations is probably better known as one of the key members of the band Appliance who have released numerous titles on the Mute record label over the years and had the privilege of recording not one but four BBC Peel sessions! Brooks is also a visual artist and has exhibited his work on the international art scene. It’s not surprising then that James has incorporated his love of guitar based music and visual art within his new EP release ‘Roman Roads’. Cat On The Wall’s Jo Whitby caught up with James via e mail to discuss the new record and discover where his passion for music originated…

FULL INTERVIEW:

Land Observations Interview

Visual and musical art have come to exist as powerful forces in their own rights. They both evoke different senses of visceral pleasures and when combined, the resulting force flourishes into a canvas of evocative stimulation. Alongside Battles, former Appliance frontman James Brooks manipulates these two artistic outlets into one arousing force.

James’ Roman Roads is proof of how effective it can be.

Full Review and Interview:

DIS meets James Brookes

There is something distinctly refreshing about listening to music that is ‘about’ Roman roads. Such conceptual bravery is to be applauded. It occurs to me that what Brooks finds intriguing about the idea of historic routes is perhaps their fractured qualities; the ways in which trajectories are re-routed over times; sections erased, or left to decay as a barely visible memory alongside something newer. For me these are the ideas that find voice in Brooks’ layered repetitive guitar phrases and the gently motorik rhythms that are themselves as ghosts of the Appliance past. Think of the finest Appliance moment of cycling reference (‘Derailleur, King Of The Mountain’) stripped of electronics and with a more pronounced Deebank guitar voice and you might be getting somewhere close. The limited edition vinyl single is released on August 1st on the Enraptured label. Get your order in quick.

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Arrivals

Brooks creates beguiling simple motorik rhythms out of layered guitar. Now if Eat Lights Become Lights is a pulsing, nocturnal ride through the urban dystopia, complete with electronic textures and juddering drums, the motorik of Land Observations creates the opposite effect. This trio of songs are bucolic simplicity itself delivered with a soothing delicacy of touch.

READ IN FULL: Land Observations EP

Radio Plays

Land Observations received its 4th play of ‘Viae (In C)’ from Gideon Coe on BBC 6 Music on wednesday 20/07/2011.

John Kennedy played ‘Viae (In C)’ on his XFM X-Posure show on Tuesday 14/06/2011.

Reviews

Record Collector Review