Even as its five members have been pulled by tides of their own, Ulrika Spacek has always been a symbol of collective art. Despite a range of day jobs (experimental physicists, graphic designers, music producers) the collective pursuit is there in the shared dream logic of the music: the off-kilter melodies, jagged guitars and cirrus cloud atmospherics. It’s there, in all the things that are said and unsaid between them; there in the writing, producing and mixing processes they share in. And even as each of their parts moves toward a unified vision, it’s never more keenly felt than in the bigger picture to which Ulrika Spacek belong.

Whether it is Oysterland, the self-curated night the band began to platform artists of other disciplines in live music spaces; Total Refreshment Centre, the East London studio acclaimed producer [caroline, Thurston Moore, Spiritualized] / bassist Syd Kemp runs which connects the dots between the jazz scene and like-minded experimental artists; or their creative bleed as musicians and producers with Crack Cloud and caroline, the band’s existence is inseparable from its community. And though singer/multi-instrumentalist Rhys Edwards now lives in Stockholm, it only underlines the band’s absolute togetherness when they create with one another – they go all-in, even at personal expense, for the sake of the whole.

The group’s latest album, EXPO, is a dialectic between analogue and electronic. Though their foundations are in the art-rock world – and though they are inspired by electronic elements more than ever – Ulrika Spacek are interested in the glitch that exists between the two. Their music reckons with human warmth and digital isolation, equal parts welcoming and altogether alienating. In many ways, the band express the tension which defines modern life. “Our music has always been a collage – a bit patchwork, sonically – but what makes this album a landmark for us is that we went one step further and made our own sound bank and essentially sampled ourselves,” the band says. They create their own doppelgängers in a world of almost-real, where the band appear as if in a hall of mirrors. Digital drums are sampled and layered upon real drums, and the effect is almost like birth in reverse – pulled from the ether and returned back to the tangible world.