“The experience wasn’t a weekend retreat that I could discuss at cocktail parties”, he now reminisces.   The turbulent change to his psyche was necessary in order to see who responsible for his conditioned actions.  It was as if the customary costumes and conditioning that had been embedded into his being for 27 years had been stripped away.   Now 31, Buchholz feels the dissociation of personal identity is a message and a major theme for Questimation, the newest album from USS.

Questimation is the first full length recording by Buchholz and Parson’s; their first EP Welding the C:/ (pronounced: Welding the C Drive) was an amazing success.  “You will be blown away by his powerful, sincere, poetic lyricism combined with really catchy, danceable, reggae-influenced chops”, was the verdict from Eye Magazine.  Selling over 10,000 copies in under a year, the EP was largely self-funded, self-produced and self-marketed.   A point that drew Alan Cross, music mastermind for Canada’s largest alternative radio company Corus Media, to the EP.   When Cross heard Questimation his comments were just as encouraging, “I just sat through Questamation from USS. Astonishing. Bloody astonishing.”

The first 43 minutes of Questamation are an extension of the first EP. “This art is the exhaust of my experience, not the other way around,” Buchholz says about the creation of the album. Wild drum and bass beats, reminiscent of 90s rave era, collide with Parson’s witty and ironic DJ beats, minced in with Buchholz’s grunge guitar strumming and mesmerizing lyrics.  The remaining 15 minute track provides the listener with a meditation sound-scape, the track ends with the opening of a large set of gates. These are the same gates that Ash had to muster the courage within himself to open. Now he offers the same gates to his listeners to pass through, like the book he was given, this is his gift to those who wish to find themselves and the peace within.

Go see USS do what they do best October 22, 2009 at the Smirnoff Experience House Party at CiRCa. Buy tickets from TicketBreak. Use promocode: purephunk and you’ll get $10 tickets and 2 drinks when you get in.

It’s not a Karmacake thing, it’s a PurePhunk thing – Dan Rice gives good hugs and he throws good parties. Find him and tell him Karmacake sent you. He’ll like you more then.

Here’s a Myspace Page: http://www.myspace.com/ubiquitoussynergyseeker