UNIVERSAL YOU

‘ISKALA’

Monday December 6th

“From Kazakhstan to Scotland’s Capital”

Universal You are an exciting three-piece Edinburgh based band with great soaring vocals and the twin raucous guitar sounds of an act who are as visually striking (due to their lack of a drummer or a bass player) as they are unique sounding.

Boasting a wide range of influences from Michael Jackson to Guns N Roses, the band is fronted by charismatic Kazakhstani front-woman Gulzhan Ibrayeva, who was recently described as “The diminutive singer with the big voice” by The Scotsman, an observation which is certainly well founded. Paul Finnie and the phenomenal guitar player Mark Grant are the 2 guitarists behind the music and to say they had an interesting background as an artistic group would be an understatement…..

Paul and Gulzhan first met in Kazakhstan when both were working in the oil business. They started writing songs together and performing for their co-workers and the locals and after putting together a band of sorts they performed a free gig in the country that attracted over 12,000 people! This resulted in the formation of Universal You upon returning to Scotland and their first single ‘Your Sin City’ was released to rave reviews, gaining considerable media coverage throughout the world and inspiring them to record a full-album.

Monday December 6th sees the release of their new single ‘ISKALA’, a cover of a very famous Russian song which they have translated and recorded in English, and is taken from their forthcoming album ‘The Way It Is’ that will be released in February 2011. The song was produced by world-renowned producer Michael Brennan (who has a very successful CV having worked with bands including Snow Patrol and The Super Furry Animals) and was actually recorded whilst Gulzhan was heavily pregnant! The pregnancy inspired Universal You to stage an event at the beginning of November that has never been seen before – a concert exclusively for expectant mothers called WOMBSTOCK! It was a massive success and marked a positive start to their album promotional work!

The band will be touring throughout the UK to support the release of the single and album at the start of 2011 and they have also recorded a great video for the single that can be viewed below.