UGRESS AT INSOMNIA IN 2002, CELEBRATING 20 YEARS IN 2022 WITH A CONCERT FROM THE FUTURE

The vivid and colorful band Ugress and Nasra Ali Omar have delivered cinematic, science-fiction based electronica for 20 years. They first met at Insomnia 20 years ago. Now they will once again perform together at Insomnia festival - but this time they bring with them a time machine, from the year 2044. They are coming back to us from 20 years into the future!

It all started at the second edition of Insomnia in August 2002, when festival manager Vidar Hansen had booked Ugress and suddenly suggested that the young and promising percussionist and musician Nasra Ali Omar could join them on stage as a guest artist. Surely this was an interesting idea and a few hours later the old DRIV stage completely exploded with cinematic electronica, sharp beats and groovy percussions.

That random evening turned out to be a lasting success - Nasra kept on being invited to join Ugress on stage as often as possible during the 2000s, and in 2010 she officially became the “regular" drummer and percussionist of the band. Today, Nasra is the longest standing artist collaboration Ugress have had.

Ugress is now touring regularly in the Nordic and in Europe with their award winning visual concert format, where the band performs “from the future” in music videos created live on stage, opening up for a cinematic media based exploration of what reality really is. The bands focus on screen based reality has intensified its relevance with the last years of pandemic and endless video chats.

Not only does Nasra collaborate with Ugress, the main band member Gisle Martens Meyer and Nasra have also done a myriad of live projects together throughout their careers. Recently they collaborated to create new music for the Norwegian silent film “Brudeferden i Hardanger”, which was presented by a super-band of Norwegian artists at Verdensteatret during TIFF (Tromsø International Film Festival) silent film days in 2021.

The 22nd of October, Ugress and Nasra will celebrate their 20th anniversary with Insomnia, presenting a multi-medial performance on the main stage at DRIV. Insomnia is also celebrating their history by presenting special commissioned work for the 21st edition, as well as releasing their anniversary book “Dreaming Awake - 20 years of Insomnia” later in October.

PICTURES: UGRESS LIVE 2002