One of my favorite musical artists of the past few years, Ugress, has just released his latest album and made it available via direct sales from the independent label web site. The prices are very reasonable (£0.49 per song or about £5.39 for the entire album). The best part is, he has also made available all of his past albums, B-sides, and EPs, too. Not that I need to buy much of it - Ugress has been offering much of the music for free download for years.
I can't tell you how glad I am to see an rise in artists offering a direct channel to their customers; and the fact that this is one of my favorites is just icing on the cake.
Ugress is a bit difficult to categorize and describe. Superficially, the music can be described as electronica, but that doesn't really do it justice. I've seen him dubbed "mad scientist musical mastermind" but probably a more useful description is this:
- "Ugress dives into a groovy, spooky and cinematic landscape of weird samples, loops and sounds. Strong rythms carries soundscapes and melodies forth. The sources of sampling include easy listening records of the 60ies, unknown and well known classic funktracks of the 70ies, computer games, television commercials and the oldest aswell as latest sci-fi b-movie. The compelling groove of a breakbeat (or two, or three) is, of course, always present."
