Ultraviolet

Between 1996 and1997, Nicholas Sillitoe & Ken Theodorsen performed as, and produced a selection of electronic music releases under the artist name “Ultraviolet”. 

Ultraviolet began primarily as a side project to “Illumination”. Nicholas Sillitoe had got to know Ken Theodorsen, a sound engineer at Disc Lab studio in Oslo, in early 1994. Ken was a well-known figure in the Tromsø electronic music scene and had occasionally appeared as a live band member with Illumination at select performances and rave events. He also released a number of his own singles on Beatservice Records under the name “Theory”.

Their one and only EP, Two Lights was released on 12” vinyl in early 1997. 

A thunderous slice of Norwegian electronica, it was exclusively licensed from +47 to Music Man records in Belgium. The Two Lights EP included two A-side tracks — “Lux Perpetua” and “Union” — as well as a seminal remix of “Union” by Detroit techno legend Stacey Pullen on the B-side. This was probably the only time a track from the so-called “Arctic” Norwegian electronic music scene received a direct “Detroit” response and remix translation.

On Midsummer’s Eve 1997, Ultraviolet performed at a bizarre, soon-to-be-legendary event in Longyearbyen, Svalbard. Sharing the bill with “Biosphere” (aka Geir Jenssen), Ultraviolet’s live set was broadcast as a live pan-European EBU radio event, with several UK glossy media outlets present.

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At this showcase deep in the Arctic, Ultraviolet presented several new, unreleased tracks to a baying crowd of drunk locals and drugged-up lifestyle journalists, who were there on an exotic junket to allegedly experience the “ambient/techno scene".

The resulting media attention brought Ultraviolet a somewhat unnerving amount of UK record company interest, contractual dilemmas, and false hopes. Nicholas and Ken, somewhat disheartened by it all, decided to pull the plug on “Ultraviolet”, leaving an album’s worth of unreleased material lost in the +47 archives to this day.

In late 1997, Ultraviolet provided a specially composed soundtrack for the experimental Norwegian dance film Exit (directed by Anette Haraldsen). The resulting track later appearing on the Beatservice compilation Arctic Circles 2 in 1999, licensed from +47.

Stacey Pullen’s remix of “Union” was also included on the compilation CD FBU: Recollections In Rare Altitude, curated by Nicholas Sillitoe and Per Martinsen on their joint +47/LoveOD release in 1998.

In 2003, Nicholas Sillitoe and Ken Theodorsen joined forces once again with Norwegian vocalist Anne Marie Almedal, collaborating as producers under the collective guise “AM & The UV”, re-using the abbreviated Ultraviolet name for further sonic adventures.

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Photo: VHS/Still image - Ultraviolet: Live in Svalbard (MTV).