Ulver

Ulver confirm new album, share new song/video, "Russian Doll"

Black metal turned trip hop turned synthpop legends Ulver have officially confirmed a new album for this year, and the first taste is “Russian Doll,” which finds them very much in the Depeche Mode-ish gothy synthpop realm. Kristoffer Rygg says:

Although this is pop music in our heads, the images and connotations in the lyrics are probably far away from what one usually associates with this genre. It actually began with some images and memories from the movie Lilja 4 ever by Lukas Moodysson; a dark and disillusioning film about human trafficking in the Baltic.

‘Russian Doll’ refers to the babushka, we began to think about this figure in the extension of Lilja 4ever and Eastern Europe. The doll became an object, an object of desire, which we mixed with mise-en-abyme – a composition technique that places pictures, or stories for that matter, inside each other. In this context we see it as a kind of vicious circle, unfolding inwards.

The song mixed by Michael Rendall and Martin “Youth” Glover, and it comes with a video directed by Marek Steven and starring choreographer and dancer Annija Raibekaze, who dances along to the song in a tee shirt featuring Ulver’s black metal classic Bergtatt – Et eeventyr i 5 capitler, which makes her very much like a large amount of Ulver’s current metalhead fans who stick with them despite their departure from metal long ago. Though maybe the band is just trolling those who might wish it was black metal they were hearing while watching the new video for the song that sounds nothing like it. Watch/listen below.

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