URI's In-Between Worlds

Released in February 2024, my 12-track experimental concept album 'URI (Soundtrack of the Liminal Film and Video Game)' gave birth to this gothic/glitch/surrealist/Dadaistic post-art series. Grounded in the raw existential level, the collection defies any attempt at what we could call 'the normalization of the senses' or the 'domestication of thought,' as well as pre-established definitions of 'art' or 'human' through digital algorithms, chance, flesh, blood, pain, joy, and desire. There is no 'Art' here according to a dominant narrative, only fleeting digital potentiating machines or ephemeral bodies of sensation coming directly from life. No fixed techniques or styles—only freedom and exploration of the new.

I used AI generative art, Photoshop, and video tools to create all the artworks. The OST is available on Spotify, Bandcamp, Youtube, and more than 150 other music stores and platforms. The story of URI is an original work by me and can be easily read on my website, Bandcamp, or Instagram account. I also made music videos for some of the tracks, all of which are published on my YouTube channel.

To provide some context, I have included the album's liner notes below, which are also included in the digital album available on my Bandcamp account: URI on Bandcamp. The album is also available on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, YouTube Music, and many other music services and social platforms.

LINER NOTES

⏛ About the soundtrack ⏛

Uri is the soundtrack crafted for an envisioned film and its video game adaptation — creations that linger in the realm of potentiality but are certainly real within virtual spaces, existing in the liminal territories, somewhere between the lines of the actual story of 'Uri' written by Mario Alberto Navarro (a.k.a. 'Ofb1t').

This musical composition beckons us to embark on a creative odyssey, where we weave our own interpretations of the yet-to-be-materialized animated movie and video game. This imaginative journey takes shape through the digital art created by Ofb1t — videos and digital illustrations currently accessible on his website and social platforms, continually updated with new visuals as part of an ongoing process. These intentionally scattered visual pieces of Uri’s world metamorphose into haunting visuals that couple with the soundtrack, echoing the ethereal essence of the liminal film and game.

From subtle, suspense-laden undertones to climactic peaks of tension, the music resonates with unforeseen sonic twists and enchanting, dreamlike soundscapes that collide with nightmarish dissonances emerging from our raw existential condition and the dark confines of the subconscious. Alongside these dissonances, bursts of frantic and magical energy entangle with the capricious power of desire, echoing the grounds of our raw existential condition. The soundtrack entwines with whimsical characters and imaginative spaces crafted with an artistic and experimental animated style, inviting us to immerse ourselves in a dark, playful, and kaleidoscopic adventure teeming with mystery, horror, wonder, and surrealism.

Visually brimming with supernatural and monstrous characters, eerie and unsettling settings, and dark themes, the story unfolds as a blend of genres — seamlessly merging surrealism, dark fantasy, sci-fi, survival horror, psychological thriller, and gothic suspense and mystery. The whole audiovisual experience traverses the blurred boundaries between consciousness and the subconscious realm and between the machine and the organic body.

Both the soundtrack and the visual art delve into the boundless domains of surrealism, showcasing Ofb1t’s unique and idiosyncratic audiovisual style and storytelling approach, adding layers of gothic and steampunk allure to Uri's world, further enhancing the overall experience. Through this exciting interplay of sound and vision, we are invited to explore the depths of our imagination, the wonders and horrors of life, and our own potential for transformation alongside Uri himself. This thrilling experience compels us to question the boundaries between fantasy and reality, accompanying Uri in his adventure that is not so different from our own journey in life.

Uri draws us into an indelible, immersive, and creative experience through the actual music, the written story, and the scattered visuals found throughout the Internet, where every note unfolds a world waiting to be explored and recreated by each one of us again and again.

⏛ The Story of Uri ⏛

In the year 2038, after interdimensional entities failed to embed a mind-control implant into Uri Underdom's mind, they killed his entire family in reprisal. The procedure left him with a partial loss of memory, split personality, and what he thought were shapeshifting powers. He battles them as they manipulate an unaware humanity under dystopian rule. Up until now, the shadowed human architects of what some call 'the global society of control'—shielded by the compliance of the masses—were untouchable, but they too are powerless against the malevolent schemes of these unearthly beings.

The abandoned mansion serves as the entities’ portal to the human universe and has become a weapon itself against humanity, possessing a life of its own and changing form every single night. However, not everything is as it seems. Those entities are too divided on what to do with the salvaged human species. Uri discovers this truth through dreams, facing a perilous journey against their control. He must be connected to the physical spaces of the shifting mansion to defeat them, but this can only happen in the darkest confines of the in-between spaces of fantasy and reality. Uri must unveil the multifaceted spaces and levels, each with its unique benevolent and malevolent uses and powers, as it is the only way he has to take revenge and restore his freedom to shape his own world.

In the process, this journey leads him to discover that he is not alone in this fight. He encounters both human allies and transdimensional entities who also battle their own species in the name of nobler dreams. He will revisit his broken past, confront his fears, and plunge into his own darkness filled with fragmented dreams and nightmares, facing countless challenges. Uri’s adventure will propel him to question his ambivalent existential condition, wavering between human and non-human. His failed quest for identity will ultimately reveal identity itself as an ever-changing process of becoming rather than being, with madness at the core of reason, and fantasy as the essence of reality.