{"title":"ULLA","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"foam-3","title":"Foam","description":"\u003cp\u003eUlla returns with ‘Foam’, a surprise new album unlocking variants of ambient pop and looped jazz\/dub styles coiled inside a glitched matrix that reminds us of Huerco S’ ‘Plonk’ as well as Ekkehard Ehlers fractal treatments and those incredible, smudged and disneyfied edits of Celine Dion released earlier this year by elusive outfit Romance. It’s an absorbing, quietly significant album for 3XL, on its most substantial release to date.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eResponsible for one of contemporary ambient’s finest breadcrumb trails in recent years, Ulla leads on from an acclaimed run of albums toward a more filigree style on ‘Foam’.  Deploying fragmented morsels resembling glass-cast confectionary with a burbling vernacular, these ephemeral new works dissolve into a supine, shoe-gauzy and jazzed bliss that’s best compared with Jan Jelinek’s efforts in this dream-staged arena, the subs x piano minimalism of Alva Noto \u0026amp; Ryuichi Sakamoto’s revered collabs, as well as the memory-frothed echo of claire rousay and Co La’s fractal baubles. Aye, it’s a sound close to our hearts and one weft with a certain sort of magic that sparkles on the nerves and imagination with delicacy. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIntending it to “feel like a keychain”, the album follows a logic that’s almost algorithmic with its haphazard mutations, but which ultimately displays a more human pulse on pieces like ‘foam angel’, weaving forlorn brass around jazz samples and Ulla’s disjointed voice murmuring unintelligibly like some cyborg liz frazer speaking into the sublime. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEffusive solo keys and strings cascade like petals on ‘song’, where familiar leitmotifs become wind-dispersed like seeds. We’re snagged on the bittersweet tang of ‘popping out’, and the unexpected dance between marina’s jazz guitar lilt and the aerosoul thizz on ‘sad face’, while the tongue-tip sensitivities of ‘blush’, and ‘for your love’ sound like Rihanna produced by a Systemisch-era Oval.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs tangled and complex as it is filled with improbable ohrwurms, ‘Foam’ is unlike anything we’ve heard from Ulla before, and it just might be the weirdest ambient\/pop dislocation of the year so far.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"3XL","offers":[{"title":"White LP","offer_id":50453817983307,"sku":"2003323","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/Foam_42109129_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727177430"},{"product_id":"tumbling-towards-a-wall","title":"Tumbling Towards A Wall","description":"\u003cp\u003eImmersively sensual, diaristic entries by cult US ambient avatar Ulla (aka Ulla Straus), the first release on Experiences Ltd, a new label run by Special Guest DJ (uon, Caveman Paradise), and a big recommendation if yr feeling Huerco S, Nadia Khan, Dominique Lawalrée, Ryuichi Sakamoto.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eTumbling Towards a Wall\u003c\/i\u003e is a keening batch of dematerialised atmospheres and lilting rhythms bound to lull listeners into hypnagogic states with its anxiety-sink ambient spongiforms and diary-like and drift-away textures. In eight low-lit and fuzzy parts they feel out smudged textures flecked with iridescent, gauzy melodies and habitual, stream-of-consciousness keys that toe the finest line between enervated and ember-like. It’s a proper, cockle-warming sound that says its piece with measured modesty and a glowing sense of soul that resonates with Dominique Lawalrée and Ryuichi Sakamoto just as much as Ulla’s peers, such as Special Guest DJ and Pendant.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe sort of record that may leave users struggling to even get up and flip the sides, such is its soporific pull, \u003ci\u003eTumbling Towards a Wall\u003c\/i\u003e, enacts a sort of slow motion collision with all the sensuality of knackered Ballardian pillow-talk. Each track here teases the senses with a range of frayed, fractured and breezily unresolved structures that exert an ideal ambient sleight-of-hand primed to lead listeners’ thoughts off on their own woozy tangents between the music’s mix of syrupy\/brittle rhythm and elusive atmospheric clag. On the A-side the sounds all remains detectably electronic, but for those who manage to keep their lids over half-mast, the B-side blossoms with sampled acoustic textures between a scudding choral cut-up that’s surely worth the entry alone, and in the closing thread of rainy day piano keys that perfuse and wilt in the heart-clutching closing piece. For solitary reflection, Ulla’s first mononymous release is a gorgeous record that mellows and balances any physical or mental space it comes into contact with.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Experiences LTD","offers":[{"title":"Black | LP","offer_id":50526308958539,"sku":"1091072","price":28.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/7f0391a7-7a8f-484b-8174-0529c26ef5e8_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1728041473"}],"url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/fr\/collections\/ulla.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}