United State of Electronica, or U.S.E., is an American music group formed in 2002 based in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region o ...

, Washington. It includes the four members of the band Wonderful:

Jason Holstrom Jason Holstrom (born August 3, 1976) is a Seattle-based musician and member of Seattle bands United State of Electronica (U.S.E.) and Wonderful. His solo projects include The Thieves of Kailua, Tonight Sky and Sunstrom Sound Solar Cycle, a se ...

(

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected string ...

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or withou ...

), Jon e. Rock (

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair of matching drumsticks ...

), Peter Sali (guitar, vocals), and Noah Star Weaver (keyboards,

vocoder A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''voice'' and ''encoder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder ...

), as well as Derek Chan (

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

), Carly Nicklaus (vocals), and Amanda Khanjian (vocals).

History

U.S.E. was formed when the members of Wonderful and Shane Tutmarc posed as an imaginary electronica band from

Mannheim Mannheim (; Palatine German: or ), officially the University City of Mannheim (german: Universitätsstadt Mannheim), is the second-largest city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg after the state capital of Stuttgart, and Germany's ...

, Germany at a Seattle-area nightclub. When the group noticed the audience's enthusiasm about their improvised dance songs, they decided to form a side project that would take dance music more seriously. Carly Nicklaus, Amanda Okonek and Derek Chan joined the members of Wonderful to develop that project, which would become the United State of Electronica. U.S.E. released its debut self-titled, self-recorded album with handpainted covers in 2004. With no distribution, U.S.E turned to the Internet and gave the album to the world for free via http://www.mannheimworldwide.com. The album was released nationally through

Sonic Boom Recordings Sonic or Sonics may refer to: Companies *Sonic Drive-In, an American drive-in fast-food restaurant chain * Sonic (ISP), an Internet provider and CLEC, serving more than 100 California communities * Sonic Foundry, a computer software company wh ...

in early 2005 and released in Japan in 2005 on Side-Out Records. U.S.E continued to tour the U.S. extensively with The Presidents of the United States of America,

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists Ted Leo and the Pharmacists (sometimes written Ted Leo/Pharmacists, Ted Leo + Pharmacists, or TL/Rx) are an American rock band formed in 1999 in Washington, D.C. They have released six full-length studio albums and have toured internationally. ...

, The Hold Steady, Aqueduct, Schoolyard Heroes, The Divorce and many more. After "IT IS ON!" reached No. 4 on the Japanese music charts, U.S.E made three trips to Japan in 2005, including the 2005 Fuji Rock Festival and played the

Sasquatch! Music Festival Sasquatch! Music Festival was an annual music festival held at The Gorge Amphitheatre in George, Washington, United States. It took place on Memorial Day weekend, running for three to four days. In 2018, it was announced that the festival was ...

in Central Washington. After another trip to Japan and tours to

SXSW South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, ...

in 2006 and 2007, the U.S.E. album was again re-released in the U.K. by The Original Electronic Recording Company. U.S.E's second full length "

LOVEWORLD ''LOVEWORLD'' is an album by American dance party band United State of Electronica (U.S.E.). ''LOVEWORLD'' was recorded in Seattle at Avast! Recording Company with engineer Cameron Nicklaus and with U.S.E at the Cabana. Track listing # "Dance W ...

" was recorded in Seattle at

Avast! Recording Avast! Recording Company is a music recording studio in Seattle, Washington."Stuart Ha ...

studios with engineer Cameron Nicklaus and with U.S.E at the Cabana. The songs "All The World", "Get That Feeling", "River of Love", live favorites "Dance With Me" and "Party People" are among others to be on the new LP. It was released on August 26, 2009. Their song "Open Your Eyes" was used at E3 2008 for the New Xbox Experience Promo. After more than 10 years of silence, the entire band came together to play a New Years Eve show at the end of 2019, along with Aqueduct and 52 kings.

Band members

Current members

* Derek Chan —

bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in the bass range: ** Bass (instrument), including: ** Acoustic bass gui ...

—

* Carly Nicklaus —

* Amanda Khanjian — vocals * Jon e. Rock —

* Peter Sali — guitar, vocals * Noah Star Weaver — keyboards,

Past members

* Shane Tutmarc — bass

Discography

*''Emerald City EP'' (2002) *''Emerald City 12"'' (2003) * U.S.E. (2004) *''Live and Direct from the Emerald City EP'' (2005) *''Party People EP'' (2005) *''

'' (2009)

External links

United State of Electronica official websiteUnited State of Electronica on Myspace
*
The Stranger Japan Interview: April 2005Seattle live show review on Three Imaginary Girls: April 2007
{{DEFAULTSORT:United State Of Electronica American dance music groups Dance-punk musical groups Electronic music groups from Washington (state) Indie rock musical groups from Washington (state) Musical groups from Seattle