Original Ultraviolets is the first musical collaboration of childhood neighbors and lifelong friends Stuart Bogie (Brooklyn-based composer, Superhuman Happiness’ bandleader and session musician) and Zachary Mastoon (abstract electronic producer Caural & half of the psychedelic shoegaze duo, Boy King Islands). Beginning in Mastoon’s basement in 1984 with a Fisher Price cassette recorder, they captured their youthful interpretation of early ‘80s Hip Hop, new wave and radio hits, singing about everything from Roald Dahl’s book The Twits and the benefits of smoke detectors, to Mister Rogers’ character Lady Elaine and how robots like to dance – all before the age of ten.
While the two founded Transmission in 1991 and subsequently graduated to other projects as adults (Mastoon as Caural and Bogie with Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra), Original Ultraviolets was reborn when the two briefly lived together in Brooklyn in 2003. While using traditional instrumentation such as the guitar, piano, horns and a vintage Univox drum machine, they fused laundry tubs, wine glasses, toy keyboards, skipping compact discs and even the apartment’s telephone into the unique palette of sounds set to tape on Bogie’s Tascam 8-track.
Including the original version of Boy King Islands’ “Summer Sun” – featuring their friend Colin Stetson (Bon Iver) on saxophone and Nick Movshon (Mark Ronson, Black Keys, Dap Kings) on bass – the bricolage pop songs were finally mixed in Chicago with Dan Smart at ECHO/NORMAL in 2012. Original Ultraviolets’ self-titled debut collects early cassette recordings through the Brooklyn sessions from the early 2000s, leading the listener through 30 years of their shared musical history.
Pick it up stat!