Noise rock duo ÜLV release debut album Revenant

Following a run of singles, Noise rock duo ÜLV released their debut album Revenant this month.

With music inspired by the skeletal drums of the late 1980s indie and goth scenes and the guitar roar of noise rock and shoegaze, the 10-track album came together after ÜLV’s two members met when moving to Northampton.

ÜLV are singer and guitarist Alex Botten and bassist Steve Torrie who are joined on drums by a 1999 Zoom Rhythmtrak 123, named Mr Grover.

Scottish native Alex explains he did what he always does when moving to a new town – he started looking for a new band.

After a few weeks of getting the lay of the land, he got a message from Steve who had seen posts on a local Facebook group by Alex, who was looking for a bass player.

“I’ve been in a lot of bands over the years,” explains Alex.

“Thee Moths were kind of semi well known in certain underground circles back in the 00s and we had nice things written about us by the music press.

“In fact, I’d played Northampton a few times before with that band, including a show at the now demolished Fish Market.

“Other than that, I was in Magnetic North Pole and Maps of Jupiter when I lived in Scotland, both bands that got Peel play and had vinyl released on Earworm Records.”

Steve adds that as part of Alex’s hunt for a bassist, he had cited Sonic Youth and noise rock as influences, something he says wasn’t hugely common for Northampton.

“I'd recently been through a bunch of life-changing events, had moved back to the area full-time, was at a loose end so sent him a spectacularly arrogant message along the lines of ‘I'm the bass player you didn't know you needed’,” explains Steve - himself formerly of bands including Great Train Sets and Indolent Management Failure.

“I'd actually done very little musically for the past decade as I was too busy with a hectic professional career I eventually decided to eschew for something a bit more simple.”

The pair set about recording Revenant, which was recorded entirely in Alex’s office at home, passing recordings back and forth and rehearsing with headphones so not to disturb neighbours.

“We started recording pretty much as soon as Alex had the kernel of an idea for a song,” Steve explains.

“We’d develop the idea together, make sure we could play it then commit to a recording that sounded as close to the live feel as far as possible.

“What you hear on Revenant is pretty much what you hear live, just the two of us and Mr. Grover, no-one else. It's a very dense sound.”

Reflecting on the record, the pair explain their both very happy with Revenant and have already started to think about its successor.

Steve adds: “The title came about because I don't think either of us expected to come up with an offering that sounded so cohesive, as a band or a body of work when we're no spring chickens.”

Both acknowledge the speed at which their debut album has come around, with some of their favourite local acts only having released a couple of songs in the time they took to make an album.

However, Alex admits: “I wonder if they might be doing it the right way though - we’ve kind of just dumped 10 in almost one go.

“I think part of it is an age thing. I still think in terms of albums being the main releases and I’m conscious that maybe doesn’t work so well in the era of streaming.”

When starting ÜLV, Alex knew one of his goals was to incorporate some of the more extreme guitar sounds he liked.

He adds he had been listening to acts such as A Place To Bury Strangers, Swervedriver, Ceremony East Coast and early Eric’s Trip, as well as music by local acts including Utopia Development Corporation and Thistle.

“I wanted to have that full blown roar of sound,” he explains.

“I’ve been a noisy guitarist, but this gave me an opportunity to really go for it right from the start. “When we started playing together it really went its own way though, so all the initial influences were rapidly subsumed by the new ÜLV sound.”

Steve adds the pair are both music sponges, having both had “saturated exposure” to many genres over the years, including noise, shoegaze and goth as well as 80's synth pop, post-punk and post-rock.

Talking about latest single Bombs Of Love, Alex explains the track is as close to a political statement as they’re likely to get and overtly about the war in Ukraine while also commenting on the “idiocy and lies of Putin”.

“The rest of the record covers a lot of ground lyrically, with some light and shade,” he adds.

“I didn’t want to write ‘this’ kind of album, or ‘that’ kind of album and let the lyrics be dictated by the sounds of the music.

“It was unusual insomuch as the writing happened at the same time as the recording.”

The track Fifty-Something Goth, which features a cameo from Eric Trip’s Chris Thompson, was written by Alex after seeing someone around that age, in “full goth gear” in a shop in Solihull.

“I was amused but then I realised that I was a guy in his 50s wearing jeans, converse and an Eric’s Trip shirt - the only difference between us was the chosen sub-culture we’d both attached to in the 90s,” admits Alex.

He set about writing something which addressed his own hypocrisy and double standards.

“The line, ‘When ‘Gimme Indie Rock’ is still my favourite song’, refers to the 90’s Sebadoh track, which itself was kind of mocking the scene they were part of.

“I was a huge fan of Eric’s Trip back in the day and have ended up being friends with Chris Thompson via the magic of social media.

“When I decided I wanted to have a little nod to Sebadoh, I asked him to record Lou Barlow’s should of “Just gimme indie rock” from the start of their song, and he kindly said yes.

“He’s there in the mix, on the Bandcamp release only, channelling 90’s Lou Barlow and making 90’s me very happy indeed.”

ÜLV released their debut in Autism Acceptance Month, a condition Alex was diagnosed with late in life and one he explains he spent years masking without realising.

“My experiences have always been filtered via my autism,” he says, “even when I didn’t know I had it.

“I can’t write songs in any other way and I can’t experience music in any other way.

“Where it does really cause problems is in the whole ‘getting out there’ thing.

“I struggle with self-promotion, hate having to call places and feel like I’m being a pain when I ask for gigs or things like that.

“I also find a lot of the bits of gigging that aren’t the playing part to be particularly hard and can get very anxious when setting up or breaking down equipment.”

Steve explains ÜLV is proof that neurodiversity can be weaponised, focused and targeted, adding they both have experience of autism spectrum disorder so there's a lot that doesn't need to be explained or questioned in the working relationship.

While in recent years, society has become more educated around neurodiversity, Alex adds he thinks the barriers which stop those with autism getting the opportunities presented to neurotypical musicians are still in place.

“There are still hoops to jump through to get gigs, to get radio play, to get anyone to listen to your music at all - and those hoops are still neurotypical shaped, in my opinion,” he says.

“We need venues, radio stations, places like that, to be more pro-active in coming to the people who, for various reasons, don’t have the wiring to come to them.”

This weekend, ÜLV will play an instore gig at HMV in Northampton as part of the shop’s series of Saturday in-stores.

Turning to the rest of 2024, the pair simply aspire to play more gigs to help give Revenant as much exposure as possible while also starting to work on its successor.

Steve adds: “Northants has an incredibly rich vein of talented alternative bands in circulation at the moment and it's as much fun to play with them and enjoy their shows as it is to play our own material.”

Alex concludes: “I’d like to avoid having a box of unsold CDs, mostly.

“I’d also like to play some more gigs around Northampton. Even though we have some out of town shows booked, I’m very much a homebody and would rather make those events the exception rather than the norm… I’m old.

“We’ve got ideas for an EP or mini-album in the next six months and then it’ll probably be onto album number two around this time next year.”

Following this week’s gig at HMV, ÜLV will play at The Horn at St Albans on Thursday, April 25.

For more information about ÜLV visit https://linktr.ee/ulv_with_an_umlaut