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2LP
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WRWTFWW 093LP
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$38.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 2/14/2025
WRWTFWW Records reissues revered UK electronic duo Ultramarine's best kept secret from their discography, the superb A User's Guide album, available as a limited double LP housed in a beautiful heavyweight sleeve with inside out printing. On the rare occasions that Ultramarine's story is told, the duo's fifth album, 1998's A User's Guide, tends to get omitted from the narrative. Radically different to anything the duo released before or since, it has remained a slept-on, timeless and inherently futurist classic ever since. Unavailable on vinyl since the year it was released, A User's Guide was the result of a conscious decision by Ultramarine members Paul Hammond and Ian Cooper to change their working methods and the "sound palette" that underpinned their work. Out went the partially improvised hybrid electronic/acoustic sounds and the collaborations with guest musicians they'd become famous for. They were replaced by painstakingly created electronic sounds and textures, metallic motifs, spaced-out chords, rhythms rooted in contemporary techno and drum and bass culture, and nods aplenty to pioneering music of the period, from the post-rock atmospherics of Tortoise, and the hazy dub techno of Basic Channel, to the tech-jazz of Detroit, the minimalism of Berlin, and the musically expansive warmth of Chicago deep house. As this first vinyl reissue conclusively proves, the material showcased on A User's Guide has lost none of its sparkle in the 26 years that have passed since its release. Fully remastered from the original DATs by Jason G at Transition Studios, the 2024 vinyl edition of A User's Guide thrusts Ultramarine's most overlooked album back into the spotlight. This WRWTFWW edition also features brand new contextualizing sleeve notes, complete with new quotes on the production process from Ultramarine, by dance music historian Matt Anniss (author of Join The Future: Bleep Techno and the Birth of British Bass Music, and founder of online electronic music platform Jointhefuture.net). For fans of electronic, leftfield, postrock, tech-jazz, IDM, minimalism, futurist electronica, dub techno, house, experimental, Autechre, Tortoise, Basic Channel, forgotten gems from superb discographies, and very good music.
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LP
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RSOON 027LP
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"Meditations is two long-form episodic ambient pieces performed with a reduced palette of kalimba, treated guitar, wavetable & analogue synths and hardware effects; recorded in London with Andy Ramsay of Stereolab. Conceived as a companion to Ultramarine's acclaimed seventh album Signals Into Space (2019), Meditations was originally issued by Les Disques du Crépuscule as a limited edition CD and is now available for the first time on vinyl via Real Soon."
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12"
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RSOON 025EP
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Real Soon brings together a trio of heavyweight practitioners in the fine art of house music to remix tracks from Ultramarine's critically-acclaimed album This Time Last Year (RSOON 024CD/LP). The Kai Alce and Hercules & Love Affair mixes share a similar approach; raw, jacking and dancefloor-friendly. Kai gives "Eye Contact" a Chicago-flavored jazz twist with a bass line reminiscent of Glenn Underground and fleeting, high-register piano. On "Passwords," Hercules & Ha-Ze Factory layer rhythm and vocal samples from the original track and punch a hole in them with brutal sawtooth basses and bouncing syndrums. Juju & Jordash reduce the downtempo "Decoy Point" to a warm, pulsing mantra.
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CD
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RSOON 024CD
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This is the sixth album by UK electronic duo Ultramarine (Ian Cooper & Paul Hammond), and their first full-length release in 15 years. Featuring all-new material and recorded in the band's isolated studio on the edge of the Essex marshes, the album ebbs and flows in mood like the nearby Blackwater estuary. Working with a palette of vintage drum machines, analog synths, textural samples, acoustic recordings, electric bass and heavily-treated guitar, the songs were born out of captured live studio performances. Cooper & Hammond then rewired their initial sketches through a series of hands-on, lo-fi effects chains, blurring the edges between acoustic and electronic elements. The result is an organic, playful feel; leaving the music room to breathe and carrying distinct echoes of the band's previous work.
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LP
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RSOON 024LP
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LP version on 180 gram vinyl with download card. Sleeve printed in three Pantone colors.
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7"
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RSOON 022EP
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Real Soon are proud to present the first new material in 13 years by London-based electronic veterans Ultramarine. "Find A Way" rolls out dreamy, chopped and layered vocals over a wash of soft, treated guitar, deep synth stabs and swinging 808 percussion. The B-side version kicks off with a monotonous, metallic-sounding Moog synth loop and builds into a full live 808 workout punctuated by arpeggiated electric bass, vocal snippets and dub effects.
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