Ultima Radio

Ultima Radio - Sleep Panic Repeat

06.05.2022

Our full album performance of 'Sleep Panic Repeat' is our most ambitious project. This video features the entire album with us, several guest musicians, and our self-made stage lights. It also shows the creation of our vinyl cover artwork. The video connects our music and artwork, offering a journey through our new songs with the energy of a live performance, culminating in the creation of the record covers for the album. This project is supported by SKE and Land Steiermark.

Ultima Radio - Animals

22.04.2022

“Animals” was the second single of our upcoming album “Sleep Panic Repeat” and was chosen deliberately to show the much wilder and more impulsive side of the album. We thought that this was a good moment after the long break due to COVID-19 and our first, more melancholic single “Black Swan” to really be noisy and loud once again, showing that now is the time to let it all out and regain that long awaited energy. It also serves as a warning to become more careful about social and environmental self-destructive behaviour, and to take many of our challenges ahead more seriously.

Ultima Radio - Black Swan

08.02.2022

"Black Swan" was the first single of our third album "Sleep Panic Repeat" and thus gave the first impression of how our next album would sound and feel like. The song is all about winning back control over one's own life and about embracing challenges that lie ahead. We wanted to make the video consistent with both the song's message as well its overall drifty and lullaby-like sound. This resulted in a video that marked by the deliberate use of repitition and black color, resembling the inevitable setbacks everyone will eventually face.

Ultima Radio - Hunt (Session Video)

12.11.2021

“Hunt” is a shared music project by the bands “Ultima Radio” and “Cadû,” featuring nine musicians. It combines the prominent musical features of both bands and is a plea for individuality. The song’s protagonist opposes conformity and sees themselves at the end of a cycle, introducing a new era. This theme is showcased in our session video, produced with Alfred Masal at the Offenes Haus Oberwart - OHO Oberwart. “Hunt” offers insight into the synergy of two bands, blending their influences and instruments in a pure, genuine live performance.

Ultima Radio - Monotyper (Session Video)

23.02.2020

The video for 'Monotyper' was shot right after 'Limber'. We chose this song for its simple, straightforward nature, making it ideal for a quick play-through and recording. After creating a well-prepared, complex video, we wanted a visually refreshing, immediate production without a narrative. However, the song itself addresses today's popular individualism and opportunism, which often ignore their environmental impact. It calls for more solidarity and the recognition that one's freedom ends where others' freedom begins.

Ultima Radio - Limber

04.10.2019

In "Limber," we wanted to highlight the increasing pressure and expectations on people, especially the younger generation, in today’s society. With the rise of social networks, people's lives are visible and accessible to virtually everyone, making it hard to remain unaffected. Trends, lifestyles, apps, and the mainstream often dictate what we should believe, like, and enjoy, pushing us to fit into a predetermined society. Our message is to resist these external influences and stay in control of who you want to become. Stay limber.

Ultima Radio - Icarus

28.06.2019

The video for “Icarus” is our first real-time music video that doesn't feature any band members as musicians. Our singer, Zdravko, plays the main part, but his audience is equally important. He tries to draw their attention to the urgent need to act in the ongoing global crisis, which many are ignoring. He manages to attract some listeners, leading to a dispute and conflict within the audience. While some deny the consequences, others join Zdravko in singing “we all signed,” highlighting that this will affect us all.

Ultima Radio - Siberian

12.04.2019

The song explores the thin lines between dream and reality, as we've all experienced dreams that felt real or memories that blur with dreams. To capture this in the video, we chose not to show any faces, creating a surreal, incomplete feeling without visible eyes or expressions. This off, surreal sensation builds until the end, when our singer's face is finally revealed, singing ‘back to the world I’ll never face,’ breaking the illusion and snapping back into reality.

Ultima Radio - Sheela

01.09.2017

We wanted to create a video that matches the song's raw, rough power without telling a story, so we kept it straightforward. The lighting enhances this effect with a narrow light cone highlighting the band in a darkened room. We shot the video from various angles to add dynamics and emphasize powerful moments in the song. Short sequences between scenes intensify the theme (yes, a rat) and the overall energy. The video was shot and directed by Fabian Erlach and first published on Red Bull Music.

Ultima Radio - Suncollector

10.07.2017

This is the first production that was created externally. The Hungarian studio around Biljarszki Maxim and Sandra Poliakov created this gem for us. It is again a video that strongly refers to the topic of the song because it is very suitable for visual representation. It tells the story of an old man who is filled with bitterness and begins to drown in his own greed, the desire for swallowing everything. His greed and obstinacy causes him to claim everything for himself, which becomes too great a burden to bear and eventually leads to his own blindness. The Video was first published exclusively on Volume.at.

Ultima Radio - Contrast

20.11.2016

The music video for ‘Contrast’ is story-driven, illustrating the mundane flow of life disrupted towards the end, emphasizing the need to take action to break through ("You’re gonna have to break through, don’t be a fool"). It's about breaking life's linearity and taking control. We filmed the video in a single take to depict this linearity, creating a sense of constant movement. The music's straight beats and driving guitar riffs enhance this effect, pushing forward throughout the song.

Ultima Radio - A/B

31.07.2016

This video provides insight into our music creation process, from initial jamming in the rehearsal room to our first live performance. It also glimpses into studio production, showcasing how we create and record new songs. Initially recorded to document our adventures, we decided to make it a music video to show behind-the-scenes moments and the faces of the band. The video features Florian Schnabl on drums, Mike Wolff at melon FM creative studios for vocals and mixing, and our Austrian friends Colours of Monochrome, who have shared the stage with us.

Ultima Radio - Moroccan Honey

26.07.2015

The video aims to evoke the feeling of a shadow play, reminiscent of looking through a tent in the Moroccan desert, where the song was originally written. We used the dancer's silhouette to be explicit yet mysterious, leaving much to the viewer's imagination. Dance and motion have since become distinct features of our artwork. We also had a special concert where Krissi, the dancer from the video, performed live to this song.

Here you can find a selection of some of our most exciting concerts we've had over the last years. As well as a few of our pictures taken from video productions, studio recordings, photo shootings, etc. We enjoy participating in the active shaping of our own creative works including artworks, videos and images.

So far we've been lucky enough to perform at locations in Austria, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Switzerland, Romania, Hungary and Croatia to support Acts like 1000mods, Mother's Cake, monkey3, The Flying Eyes, Dÿse and many many more

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To provide a little insight in our story.

When we started this project, none of us knew where it would end up. Where it would take us, what our music would sound like ten years down the road. When we first met and played together in a shabby rehearsal room behind a car repair shop, we were heavily influenced by Stoner Rock at that time. As we all had plenty of ideas, it didn’t take us long until we had enough material to put it on an EP.

But, understandably, every band needs a name. We knew that we wouldn’t want a name that confines our music to the Stoner Rock genre. What we wanted to create was powerful, eccentric music, regardless of the genre it might eventually end up in. You could say the search itself bared the name; after none of the names had seemed satisfying, it was a decision of last resort, the ultima ratio. And here we are.

So, in 2015, we released our self-titled debut EP. Afterwards, we noticed that our music seemed to quickly move away from Stoner Rock into more experimental and diverse approaches. We started to develop a more modern sound along with more complex songwriting, which is why we preferred an EP over an album at that time since we didn’t feel as if our music was already at a stage where we could create a coherent album. We picked five of our most stoner rock-like songs that would form a complete unit to finally have something tangible that we could publish, and perhaps also to already set sail for new waters and discover other genres.

The EP was well received, but we didn’t want to dwell on that for too long. There was lots of material left, and we knew our next big achievement would be our first album. We felt that our music was evolving rapidly, and we were eager to capture that progression in a more substantial format. The journey from our early days in that dingy rehearsal room to the release of our debut album was filled with experimentation and growth, laying the foundation for our evolving musical identity.

But before that, in the following year, we also released two Split-Singles. The first one, Mapale Split, emerged from the collaboration with the Austrian band Colours of Monochrome. The second one, Reciprocity Split, was recorded with the local band Witchrider. It was released and also distributed on Fuzzorama Records. We also had the pleasure to contribute a song to the soundtrack of an Austrian play by Zdravko Haderlap called 'Das Lächeln Gottes'.

So, after two years of playing our first concerts, gaining experience and intense rehearsing, we finally released our debut-album ‘A Thousand Shapes’ on Panta R&E Record Label, our current label with which we started working together in winter 2016. The album was produced and partly recorded in the GAB Music Factory in Vienna with the support of Georg Gabler, who has collaborated with many renowned bands such as the Austrian Rock band Mother's Cake. It also features several guest musicians who are all friends from other Austrian bands.

We like to see an album not only as a musical composition, but as a fully fledged piece of artistic work, which is why we also enjoy actively shaping our own creative works including artworks, videos and images. Julian Jauk is particularly responsible for the conceptional and technical implementations within the band. We’ve also produced a considerable part of our music at Tonstudio Grelle Musik, founded by Werner Jauk. We benefit a lot from the studio’s equipment, which ranges from vintage to newest digital tools, which we believe is also reflected in our music.

As we’ve mentioned before, our style has changed over the years, at first developing into a rather diverse, sometimes bizarre sound and thus moving away from our beginnings as a pure Stoner Rock-band, which is reflected in our debut-album. However, since the release of ‘A Thousand Shapes’, time and experience has shifted our music towards a more straight-forward and consistent style, which ultimately resulted in the creation of ‘Dusk City’, our second album released in October 2019. However, heavy guitar riffs and powerful beats have always been a core element of our band and we’re eager to keep it that way. ‘Dusk City’ was again released on Panta R&E Record label and produced and partly recorded at the GAB Music Factory as well as Stress Studio and Tonstudio Grelle Musik.

Apart from all that work that’s happening behind the curtains having been able to get around so much has afforded us the possibility to grow immensely, both as musicians and human beings. We’ve been to lots of cities, have met many other musicians, of which many really impressed us and have become close friends, and have been lucky enough to always enjoy a great audience. Whether it’s one person or 100 people, the performance counts, and not the size of the audience, and we believe that we’ve always succeeded at that. There were also long, tough drives and rough nights, but in the end, this is what makes the experience complete.

The creation of our debut album was our first attempt to form a coherent and satisfying musical work. We are a happy with the result and it taught us a lot, and we believe that a great part of this development can now be heard on our second album. This time, we didn’t start from zero, we started with our newly gained knowledge from our first album, and the result is a musical composition that is more straight forward, filled with confidence and determination. We’ve grown and become older, more experienced, and so has our music.

Zdravko Konrad

Vocal

booking

Julian Jauk

Guitar, Vocal

artistic director

Benjamin Krause

Guitar

copywriter

Bernd Hausegger

Bass

social media

Paul Krassnitzer

Drums

finances

David Huschek

Live Sound

Sleep Panic Repeat (2022)

‘Sleep Panic Repeat’ depicts a cycle of three different emotional states that are constantly reoccurring. It describes the vicious cycle that sometimes makes us spiral down into a sense of powerlessness to bring an end to that cycle. Our goal was to showcase this idea in a very minimalistic but intense way. Each one of the cycles on our vinyl covers were burned into them at the end of our Full Album Performance Video by the help of self-made fixtures on the covers that were surrounded by a filament that we heated up at the end of our last song. It was a process that was deeply connected to our music and also expressed a degree of anger and urgency to make aware of this societal development.

Dusk City (2019)

This artwork shows the rendered 3D model of the song ‘Dusk City’, the song that also gave the name to the album, which was created by extracting the information of a DAW file to translate it into forms and shapes. Thus, the artwork resembles a physical representation of the song. At the same time, it reminds visually of urban structures through the interplay between lighting and perspective and can thus be seen as a combination of a physical embodiment of the song and artistic work that brings life to that representation. The ultimate goal of the artwork was to create a modern, physical interpretation of how to visualize a musical piece of work.

A Thousand Shapes (2017)

The creation of this artwork was based on the same method – a psychedelic motive, digitally processed. The goal was the implementation of Stoner Rock and vintage elements by the use of contemporary tools to create something new. The hand stands for our motivation to reach out for something greater and is composed of by itself shapeless and random items that form a discernible entity through the deliberate combination of its parts, similar to our music that builds on various influences to generate a new mix.

Reciprocity Split (2016)

The starting point for this artwork was a photomontage of three different facial expressions that should remind of numerous psychedelic covers of the 70s. The photos were computationally processed using a self-made script that transfers them into vector graphics. This is also representative of the shape of our own music: Originating somewhere in the 70s but interpreted in a contemporary and digital fashion.

Mapale Split (2016)

Both songs on this Split are characterized by their very rough sounds and heavy riffs, so again we were looking for a good idea to transfer this into an appropriate image. On this artwork you can see both of the songs depicted as powerful and very massive blocks that are created by a self-made script that translates the songs’ wave-format into a correspondent 3D tower. The perspective also contributes to the heaviness of the model. The cover is kept rather straight and less psychedelic to mesh with the style of the two songs.

Ultima Radio EP (2015)

In Stoner Rock, noise and feedback is a very frequently used element that contributes to the characterization of the music. We thought about a way to illustrate this phenomenon in order to create an artwork for our EP that is also connected to the music. The visual feedback is the result of a loop that is established between a projector and a camera that captures the projection in an endless cycle. Accordingly, we added a rather psychedelic touch to the photos.

CONTACT DETAILS

Ultima Radio

e-mail: office@ultimaradio.at

phone: +43 (0) 664 9147506

Laimburggasse 26

A-8010 Graz

Austria

Distribution

Rough Trade Distribution e-mail: info@roughtrade.de

phone: +49 (0) 221 99075 0

Rough Trade Distribution GmbH

Mathias-Brüggen-Str. 85

D-50829 Cologne

Germany

Company

Krassnitzer Paul u Mitges