UNTIL THE RIBBON BREAKS
BIOGRAPHY
2013

Remember the days when gifting mixtapes was the definitive romantic gesture? That careful ritual of combing through your record collection, choosing a myriad of musical moods and memories for the recipient to imbibe and devour again and again, until the tape wore out - Until The Ribbon Breaks.

Having just wrapped up their first North American tour supporting Lorde, UTRB, the three piece band fronted by Cardiff native, Peter Lawrie Winfield recall how as youngsters you would "give a girl or a friend a mixtape to let them know what music you loved. It didn't matter if one song was De La Soul and the next was R.E.M. It was about the feeling the entire collection conveyed.”

Drawing both their approach and name from their art form, Until The Ribbon Breaks (UTRB) are a uniquely skilled, singing, songwriting, producing collective recently signed to Universal Republic Records.

Decidedly honest, their music embraces an old-school passion for intricate, clever writing and the slicing together of sounds, samples and lyrics; a skill demonstrated in debut track ‘Pressure’ and the accompanied self-made video which they released on YouTube earlier this year.

The powerful EP, ‘A Taste Of Silver,’ which followed, treated listeners’ ears to something compelling and unique. Mesmeric, dark apocalyptic pop, meets infectious “Avant RnB” in a way that is both haunting and beautiful in its raw confrontation of human emotion.

Boldly and without trepidation, the music tells tales of love, loss, lust, infatuation, regret and fear all enveloped in cinematic imagery, which could sit comfortably within the poignant scenes of any Spike Lee, Tarantino or Scorsese film.

The filmic element to their work comes as no surprise from a band whose lead originally studied film and has always maintained that music and film inform both each other, and the production process.

To craft their debut EP, the boys buried themselves in a hidden studio space armed with just a film projector, a microphone, a drum machine, and a piano and went about marrying their two chief loves. As the art forms began to merge, the outcome was a magnetic, provocative, self-made video for every track.

Peter recalls how he would "project films on the wall while [he] was working." “I'd shut the sound off, watch the movies, and make music to them. It was everything from David Lynch to Terrence Malick. The mood usurped the narrative and the visuals and music became entwined."

This year, as well as working on their own upcoming album, UTRB have caused frenzy amongst the blogosphere with remixes or “reimaginations” for The Weeknd’s ‘Wicked Games,’ Sam Smith’s ‘Nirvana,’ Lorde’s ‘Royals,’ and a feature on EL-P and Killer Mike’s new album ‘Run The Jewels.’

Moreover this year their work has gripped the attention of the likes of NPR, the BBC and other major players including rave reviews from Pitchfork, Spin, Pigeons and Planes, Jay Z’s Life + Times and Fader but to name a few.

Having just finished a 5-date sell out tour with Phantogram across the US, UTRB are back in the studio working on their debut album due for release in 2014.