Ultramarine

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

Formed in 1989, their 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.'

The group'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. In 2023, Blackford Hill released 'Send and Return’, the result of a live session captured onboard a barge floating on the Blackwater Estuary in Essex.

"'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