Ultramarine / Live in Scotland

Friday 2 May 2025
The Glad Cafe, Glasgow G41 2HG

Saturday 3 May 2025
Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh EH1 1 JW

Ultramarine are the London & Essex-based electronic duo, Ian Cooper and Paul Hammond.

Formed in 1989, the duo’s early releases were issued on the seminal Brussels-based label Les Disques du Crépuscule. Their classic second album, Every Man And Woman Is A Star (1991), was neatly described by Simon Reynolds in his book Energy Flash as:

“Perhaps the first and best stab at that seeming contradiction-in-terms, pastoral techno... all sun-ripened, meandering lassitude and undulant dub-sway tempos... like acid-house suffused with the folky-jazzy ambience of the Canterbury scene.”

In 2023, we released Ultramarine’s eighth album, Send and Return, the result of a live session captured onboard a barge floating on the Blackwater Estuary.

Support comes from The Shell and Penstkart (Glasgow) and Other Lands and discjocelyne (DJ set) (Edinburgh)

Ultramarine’s collaborative work has included partnerships with Robert Wyatt, Kevin Ayers, Anna Domino, Lol Coxhill & Iain Ballamy. Signals Into Space, the duo's acclaimed seventh album (Les Disques du Crepuscule, 2019), features songs written in collaboration with Anna Domino and contributions from saxophonist Iain Ballamy (ECM, Loose Tubes) and percussionist & vibraphone player Ric Elsworth. A companion ambient mini-album Meditations was released in November 2019.

In 2023, we released Send and Return, the result of a live session captured onboard a barge floating on the Blackwater Estuary, recorded in 2020. Paul and Ian were joined by Greg Heath (on saxophones and alto flute) and Ric Elsworth (percussion and vibraphone). Flowing and mutating as it transitions from an Essex river into the open sea, the Blackwater Estuary, north of London inspired this beguiling collection of hypnotic jazz, itching electronica and softly dazzling ambient shapes. Find out more >

“‘Send And Return’ was recorded on a Thames sailing barge moored in Essex’s Blackwater Estuary, and seeks to gently assert a sense of place and atmosphere in its pattering beats and ambient currents... brilliantly updates the bucolic ecstasies of their 1992 landmark, ‘Every Man and Woman Is A Star’” — John Mulvey / MOJO

“I’ve been looking at that space in which ambient music and electronica mingle with jazz, and with their latest album, Ultramarine have firmly moored in those waters. There are soaring saxophones, alto flutes, and vibraphone all in the mix to make what’s a really contemplative ambient sound but with a jazz shimmer.” — Elizabeth Alker / BBC Radio 3 'Unclassified'

“Combining hypnotic jazz with electronics and textural soundscapes, it’s a welcome return from the pair who debuted with ‘Folk’ in 1990 on iconic Belgian label Les Disques Du Crépuscule... A stunning study of contrasts.” — Claire Francis / Electronic Sound