On February 28., the Norwegian electronic band Ugress played at the Nomad World Pub in Minneapolis, Minnesota, as featured artists of the Spark Festival. It was their first gig in the U.S., and it proved to be a success. Ugress is worth keeping an eye on as they try to enter markets ouside Europe. Norwegian critics have embraced Ugress from the very start and the word is out that these crowd pleasers are not only breaking through, but they are also doing such a great job that they introduce electronic music to a wider audience.
2/29/2008 :: The man behind Ugress is Gisle Martens Meyer from Bergen, Norway. He is assited by drummer The Igor.
In 2002 the single "Loungemeister" was a huge radio hit, helped by a legendary animated music video. The debut album "Resound" was released in the fall the same year. Since then Ugress has been a favourite among TV and film producers, and has composed score for the famous extreme sport series "Perfect Moment- Nuit de La Glisse". "Resound" was followed by "Cinematronics" in 2004, including underground hits like "Manhattan Sapphire" and "Makina Fifth". Recently, the newest album "Unicorn" was released. In 2006 Gisle Martens Meyer created his own label Uncanny Planet.
The Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Art brings international creators and performers of new media arts to Minneapolis. Spark celebrates uses of new technologies for artistic expression, including music, video, theater, dance and plastic artworks. Most of the events are free, and all events are open to the public. The festival will be going on until March 2.