''Ultraviolet'' is the fourth
extended play by American
electronica
Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that started in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mostly used to r ...
project
Owl City, released digitally on June 27, 2014, through
Republic Records
Republic Records is a New York City–based American record label owned by Universal Music Group (UMG). It was founded by Avery Lipman and Monte Lipman as an independent label in 1995, and was acquired by UMG in 2000. Republic was initially an ...
.
The EP's lead single, "Beautiful Times", which features violinist
Lindsey Stirling, was released on April 8, 2014.
Background and release
In early 2014, Young revealed the album artwork for his single, "Beautiful Times", through his
Instagram
Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...
account. The song, which was released on April 8, would act as the lead single for ''Ultraviolet'' and features music by violinist
Lindsey Stirling. Following the release of "Beautiful Times", Young stated his intent to release a steady "series of EPs" in 2014 rather than one larger recording. On June 5, it was announced that the EP would be released on June 27. The album art and track listing, as well as a clip of one of the songs, were released on June 10 as part of a social media marketing campaign to promote the release of the EP.
On June 17, the EP was released for pre-order on
iTunes
iTunes () is a software program that acts as a media player, media library, mobile device management utility, and the client app for the iTunes Store. Developed by Apple Inc., it is used to purchase, play, download, and organize digital mul ...
.
On June 18, Owl City premiered a new track, "Wolf Bite" days before the release of the EP. Starting on June 19, through many forms of social media, Young stated the official music video for "Beautiful Times" will be premiering on June 26. On June 25, the day before the premiere, Young posted a preview from the video. The "Beautiful Times" music video debuted the next day, as expected, via ''
Rolling Stone''. The EP peaked No. 30 on the
''Billboard'' 200 chart. "Beautiful Times" eventually peaked at position 91 on the Japan Hot 100 chart.
On July 17, Owl City released a visualizer video for the song "Wolf Bite" premiering on MetroLyrics.com through
Vevo. On August 1, the a visualizer video for "Up All Night" was released. Adam Young has expressed his interest to create respective visualizers for each song in this EP.
On August 29, the video for "This Isn't The End" was released and serves as the last visualizer for the EP. The song was also included on the subsequent studio album, ''
Mobile Orchestra''.
Composition
Adam Young wrote and produced the EP entirely by himself.
According to Young, the EP is a "deeper venture into EDM" and has a more "edgier sound to Owl City than experienced before."
Critical reception
''Ultraviolet'' was generally met with positive reviews. Fred Thomas of
AllMusic stated, "''Ultraviolets high point was first song and subsequent single 'Beautiful Times', a bounding pop track marked by soaring string arrangements from guest violinist
Lindsey Stirling."
Marcus Floyd of ''
Renowned for Sound'' remarked, "There are definitely some different sounds being experimented here with ''Ultraviolet'', standing out from the light hearted pop previously tapped into by Owl City."
Track listing
Charts
Music videos
*
*
*
*
Audio
*
*
*
References
{{Authority control
Owl City albums