.
|
.
|
|
. |
Magnús Leifur - vocals, guitar, trombone
Bjarni Guðmann - guitar, synth
Aron Vikar - bass, synth
Haraldur Örn - drums
Biography
Formed in 1999, Úlpa is Icelands most promising act. Born of
a garage in Hafnarfjörður, the band put-out a 12 track demo in
april 2000, that has
eaten-up Icelandic airplay since its release. And while Reykjavik-based
label´s vied to sign the melody-rich Úlpa, they developed
their live
performance through a series of low key gigs with Trans Am twice,
Stephen Malkmus, at the Mogwai afterparty held at the capital´s gigging-centre,
Gaukur á stöng. By the end of that year the relatively
young band were well recognized as being Iceland´s brightest musical
hope. As Reykjavik.com put it, they were "best known for stealing the scene
at Iceland Airwaves". In january 2001, Úlpa began recording their
debut album. working with highly acclamied producer, Valgeir Sigurðsson
(best known for his work with Björk), Úlpa completed their
album, Mea Culpa in two months.
Songs from the new album were aired earlier this summer at the Reykjavik
Mini Festival, also featuring Blone redhead and Proppellerheads and their
performance there spurred Icelandic radio station, Rás 2, to
dub them "one of the best Icelandic bands". Mea Culpa is due for release
12 october and
the first single from the debut, ´Dinzl´ is "the best thing
for a long time" according to RadioX. In the fall of 2001 Úlpa toured
the east coast of USA
and got excellent reviews in the Washington Post. The band was nominated
for the Icelandic Music Awards 2001 and the album Mea Culpa was nr. 3 in
critics choice for the album of the year. The band is now working
on their second album which will be released in 01/08/03
When a band has a knack of writing very good music and is also willing
to put in a lot of hard work there can only be one outcome....Úlpa
is one of
these bands and the four members, all hailing from Hafnarfjörður,
truly deserve all the praise they've been recieving. Although they're a
bit
baffled by their success, Maggi, Bjarni, Aron and Halli remain focused
on the music and have an unwritten policy to just go where the flow takes
them.
If people like their music, then fine but if not, they won't lose much
sleep over it.
But how is Úlpa's music? It's hard to pin it down as the band
tends to bring the best from many different worlds while adding some very
nice touches of
it's own. The result; guitar driven indie rock from the top drawer
that is influenced by everything but still sounds like nothing you've heard
before.
When the debut album 'Mea Culpa' was released in the fall of 2001 Úlpa
had already become a house-hold name in the indie scene and shared stage
with
artists such as Trans Am, Stephen Malkmus, The Fucking Champs and Blonde
Redhead. A limited edition single the preceded the full-length was also
a
shock hit and was aired quite often on the radio in the following weeks.
The album didn't disappoint although some had probably hoped it would be
more
straight-forward. Instead, it took some time for it to sink in and
instead of fading away, it just became better and better - a true measure
of a good
album. The members of Úlpa though are convinced that they can
do better and there is positively no doubt that they WILL succeed. These
are truly
exciting times....
- Árni Viðar
Contact
-ulpa45@hotmail.com
-band manager Bjarni ph.nr. 00354-5610420
www.ulpa.is
|
|
|
. |
