In the summer of 1991, Mallorca Lee was working in a nearby computer factory while Rodger Hughes was a teacher at a local school. The two of them got talking after Mallorca’s brother suggested they meet as they shared the same musical tastes and were influenced by the synthesiser and drum machine sounds of bands and artists such as Adamski, Guru Josh, Sterling Void, N-Joi, and A Guy Called Gerald. With a love of even earlier ‘keyboard wizards’ such as Kraftwerk and New Order, they put their heads together and bought their own synthesisers and drum machines and started to put their tastes, ideas and thoughts of what they would like to go out and dance to into practice. Towards the end of 1991, they landed a couple of gigs and although they weren’t yet known as Ultra-Sonic, they were causing an impact on the still young Scottish dance scene, performing at small raves under different names such as Sub-Sonic, Axium and Aviation.
Into early 1992 they had a chance meeting with Bill Grainger of Clubscene Records, who spotted the talent. He signed them to Club Scene Records. Ultra-Sonic booked some studio time at ‘Pet Sounds’ Studio in Glasgow to write and produce their first tune ‘Obsession’, with singer Heather Allen and studio engineer Andy Haldane. Obsession was unleashed onto the unsuspecting Scottish dance scene selling over 6,000 copies and making it the second best new single in the 1992 Scottish dance awards.
Ultra-Sonic began their ‘live’ career officially as Ultra-Sonic with their first live performance at ‘Freedom’ in Glasgow, where they stormed the place. So much in fact that Ultra-Sonic were voted best brand new band in the 1992 Scottish dance music awards.
Into 1993 and Ultra-Sonic released their 2nd single ‘The Pulse’ steering more towards the Hardcore Techno side of things and with this particular track selling over 10,000 copies it was obvious that Ultra-Sonic were steam rolling ahead onto greater things.
After ‘Freedom’ more events followed such as Eurodance, Fantazia, Streetrave, Revolution and Rezerection. Their third single ‘Arpeggio/Annihilating Rhythm parts 1 & 2’ was released in October 1993, has become known as a Rezerection anthem. This is by far their biggest single to date selling 15,000 copies alone in Scotland and after being licensed by Low Spirit/Polydor Records in Germany with over 60,000 sales of ‘Apreggio/Annihilating Rhythm’ taking total sales of their third single to over 100,000 not bad for a little known band from Scotland.
In 1993 Ultrasonic were voted best Scottish band (M8 magazine awards), best Scottish band (Radio Forth’s ‘Stepping Out’ dance awards), the list goes on and on and with also winning best UK band in the Rezerection poll awards 1993.
Ultra-Sonic released a video in December 1993 which contained footage of all their recent gigs and in four days of it being on sale, 6,500 copies had been sold, outselling Disney’s “Jungle Book” in some Glasgow stores.
Ultra-Sonic’s CV would make impressive reading as their frequency of live gigs gain even more momentum with events through 1994 reaching various clubs and events all over Europe including some behind the former ‘Iron Curtain’ in cities such as Budapest in Hungary. Their popularity in Europe is phenomenal, in a recent poll in Germany, Ultra-Sonic were voted best dance band alongside Prodigy. They are so popular that in 1994, two weekends out of every month were spent performing somewhere here they are in Germany’s massive Nature One event in Dortmund.
Being massively popular in Scotland and all over Europe, hasn’t affected Rodger or Mallorca as you would expect of some equally popular groups. They remain very approachable and maintain that they have any amount of time for anyone who wishes to talk to them, two extremely likeable guys with a belief in their audience.
After Ultra-sonic, Mallorca started branching out to other things such as Bikini State, Scanners, Public Domain,
the MLXL record label and creation and operation of the brand Mallorca Lee, including an amazing remix of the classic ‘Obsession’
