Last week I write a post about the emerging new Ukranian-Canadian band Ummagma. Admittedly, I wrote the piece after only listening to three songs. I have now found the time to listen to their two albums, and after hearing all of the various influences that their music has, I think that this couple deserve a little more attention.
Ummagma is a Ukranian-Canadian duo comprised of Alexander Kretov and Shauna McLamon. Both Shauna and Alexander share songwriting duties, while Shauna takes care of most of the vocals -with a couple of exceptions-and Alexander is responsible for the instrumentation and recording of the music.
Ummagma began as an affair of love and music in 2003 in Moscow which eventually grew into a musical partnership and loving marriage. They began making music together and set up their own home studio in Kiev, and through the years continued to upgrade their recording and studio equipment until last July when they released two debut albums, Ummagma and Antigravity
Ummagma's music has a lot of different influences including shoegaze, dream pop, indie rock and prog rock. The band are compared to an array of different bands including The Cocteau Twins, Blonde Redhead, Talk Talk, Lush and the Bowery Electric. After listening to the two albums, comparisons to Asobi Seksu (Lama), Peter Gabriel (BFD) and Exitmusic (Beautiful Moment) would not be unwarranted. Listen to all three songs below.
I was initially skeptical of all of the different musical styles on the albums, but came around after hearing how good the song-writing and production is. The songs musical styles run from highly texturized, to euphoric, ethereal, dreamlike and ambient to rhythmic and beat driven.
There a lot of bands that have made albums with varying influences that went on to become classics- I am thinking Girls self titled album and The Clash's London Calling. I am not saying Ummagma's albums are classics, but they are very good.
Listen to their debut albums Ummagma and Antigravity on bandcamp.
Other links for Ummagma:
Soundcloud
YouTube (which includes four music videos)
OMG Ian you are so lovely! This is whoopingly (whether or not that is a real word) awesome… Thanks very much for this gift!
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