ubzorb :: future roots downtempo & dub

about us
shows
press kit
contact us
home

about us.
Ubzorb is a San Francisco Bay Area band that fuses rock, world music and electronica with edgy, beautiful female vocals. Ubzorb's sound is influenced by Shpongle, Portishead, Alice in Chains, Ravi Shankar, Mr. Bungle and Bill Laswell, as well as classical Indian and Chinese music. Members of Ubzorb have shared the stage with many fellow musicians, including Michael Franti of Spearhead, Zion I, Billy Talbot (of Neil Young's band), DJ Cheb i Sabbah, DJ Swamp, White Zombie and Black Sabbath's Tony Iommi.

The five piece band was founded by Rama and Chris Wing (mcthfg), who met through mp3.com in April of 2003. Rama was playing sitar over electronic beats and mcthfg was using tabla samples in his electronic project "walk skip run glide". The duo jammed together in Oakland, CA for about a month and soon added Cyrus Wong-Weissman on bass. A craigslist posting found vocalist Dorian Rosavox.

The quartet began gigging in the Bay Area in the summer of 2003, and after a year of performing added percussionist Stephan Junca to the roster in 2004. Additional shows in the Bay Area, Nevada, Utah, and LA helped the quintet grow tighter musically, personally, and professionally. They have spent the last two years recording and producing their self titled debut album. The album features 10 original tracks, and includes an infectious dancefloor reworking of New Order's "Bizarre Love Triangle."

Ubzorb is looking forward to touring and supporting the new release.

	Rama is the melodic frame-worker of Ubzorb. This “sultan of strings’ began his musical journey at the age of nine with the guitar, learning folk, rock and classical styles. Rama joined his first serious band, Mr. Buzzsaw and the Blasphemy Boys, when he was seventeen. This Reno-based band recorded demos and opened for White Zombie. Rama left the group to pursue his interest in dance music and to expand his musical horizons. He moved to Seattle in 1994 and joined industrial band And Christ Wept. They performed regularly in Seattle and released a cd under the ADSR label. After acquiring his first sitar on a trip to India in 1996, he formed Numantra, which fused Indian music with industrial and rock. Numantra drew large crowds at local Seattle venues such as the Fenix, the Crocodile, and the Tractor. After several member changes and a yearning for sunshine, Rama moved to San Diego, where he worked on solo electronica and practiced the Chinese erhu. Having honed his skills on his new instruments, Rama soon ended up in the Bay Area, quickly forming Ubzorb and Cordhead Recordings. As owner of Cordhead Recordings (both the studio and the label), Rama scores music for film and tv and produces albums for a number of local bands. He has been fortunate to have shared the stage with greats such as Karsh Kale, Cheb I Sabbah, and members of Black Sabbath.
	Dorian began playing piano at age 4. She spent her early years plunking melodies on the family upright, learning violin at the age of 8, and graduated to singing in her teens. She has studied music, dance, and theatre at the Rodelijveken Kunst Institute in Ghent, Belgium. Dorian graduated from the School of Creative and Performing Arts in Cincinnati, Ohio as a triple threat with majors in vocals, music and theatre. She moved to California and began playing solo as Aphrodite’s Hymen in San Francisco. She toured with spoken word artist Charlie Getter in the summer of 2002 on the “Getter Hymen Tour”. Dorian joined Ubzorb in the summer of 2003 and has been inspired in multiple ways that have expanded and enhanced her style. Her lyrics take the listener on a trip through the creative, destructive, and mysterious world of forbidden romance and tap-trancing dances through the spaces between waking and sleeping states, sailing on the high notes, salacious on the low and wailing when she really wants you to know.
	Cyrus started playing bass at the age of 13 after listening to his parents' collection of reggae and Motown. He's from California’s lost coast, a remote corner of Mendocino county where the sidewalk ends (thanks Shel!), but also where the power comes from the sun and drinking water comes from the ground - a place where the dwindling redwoods still out-number the people. Cyrus went to UC Berkeley and graduated in 2003 with a B.A. in Physics but eventually found his true calling in music after playing and becoming friends with a handful of inspiring people. Cyrus is currently finishing up a two year program at Expressions (audio engineering) and works with producer Hans Wendl. He's a sucker for music and art, especially when its made by his friends! When not making noise with instruments, Cyrus can usually be found shouting obscenities while dining in crowded family eateries.
	Stephan began his musical training on the trumpet in the late 70’s. Within a couple of years he gave way to his uncontrollable urge to beat the hell out of anything that landed in his lap, and found his natural talent on the drums. Primarily self-taught, his interest brought him to explore most modern western styles as well as an intriguing variety of traditional world rhythms. With his first public performances starting at the young age of thirteen, he tallied up many successful stints throughout the Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Baltimore and Miami areas. He eventually migrated to the Southwest and soon became established as a steady working drummer within the New Mexico circuit. While there he began exploring the multi-cultural aspects of drumming and embarked on seriously researching and refining his hand drumming techniques. In the mid nineties Stephan relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area to further become immersed in the traditional African, Arabic and Latin communities and to study with the masters. Ultimately he came to meet and work with various acts such as Azigza, The Billy Talbot Band, Boatclub, MC Rai, Gilli Smith, and Pyrocussion.. His involvement in Ubzorb has been a huge positive as his talents have rounded out the unique and inspiring sounds that the band generates.
	mcthfg is Christopher Wing. Born in Milwaukee, Wi, he moved to the bay area in late 2001. Influenced heavily by the Asian Massive movement, he was a founding member of walk skip run glide. After moving to the bay, mcthfg helped found bay-area band Superbacana, merging electronics with Brazilian jazz and batucada. He also performs with many local improvisational acts, including the Cyrus Wong Trio, hot veluer, and The Esophaguys. “Wingman” records and djs as "mcthfg." His skills include keyboards, beat production, bagpipes, & flute. He’s always eager to rehearse, record and perform, unless he's fencing (so "When the British invade, someone can fight them off.") He's easily identifiable as the "sexy" one in the band; the one whose glistening smile and bobbing head can be occasionally viewed from behind the laptop’s neon projections.