Pixie Ninja - Ultrasound

Whenever something special my ears would come around for a piece of music that might peak my interest, I know it would hit me at the right moment. One of those moments is a band called Pixie Ninja. Now mind you, it sounds like an Anime series or a Video Game, but the title of the band’s name as I’ve mentioned a second ago, peak my interest. They’ve released their debut release this year on the Apollon Records label entitled, Ultrasound.

The band came around with two individuals who have a love of the Scandinavian Progressive scene. Now, again, I admire the Scandinavian scene, and this band is going to be up on my list that is up there with Anglagard, White Willow, Motorpsycho, and Beardfish to name a few. Jostein Haugen and Marius Leiranes started to work on the album back in 2015 and then recorded the album a year later.

And bringing Mattias Olsson to the score by mixing the album and producing it along with the overdubs and drumming, that’s a combination. And throw in people like Johan Hals Jorgensen and guest musician Ketil Vestrum Einarsen (White Willow, Wobbler, and Motorpsycho) to the mix, you’ve got yourself a weekend. But let’s go ahead and get straight to the album.

The album itself has this dark futuristic setting. It always has this reminisce at times as if Pixie Ninja were doing the score for the 2017 video game, Prey. Now for me as a Geek, I would love to see them one day do something like that in the near future. The album with six compositions that both Haugen and Leiranes wrote and arranged, takes you into the darker areas that you've never seen before. It’s almost at times that you can feel as if a pin dropped and knowing that trouble is brewing.

And getting out is the hard part. There are elements between Goblin, Anima Morte and the Sorcerer-era of Tangerine Dream thrown into the mix. Whenever an album I mentioned before as if the movie inside your head, well think of this like an extended director’s cut of a sci-fi dystopian movie. It blends well of the past, present, and future. It’s creepy, deep, and vast, but it is an interesting release this year.

I have listened to Ultrasound five times now. It’s not an easy album to listen to, but I will hope they continue to do more in the years and years and years to come. Ultrasound is one of the scariest and compelling releases I’ve listened to.