Ulrika Spacek – Build a Box Then Break It
London art-rock quintet Ulrika Spacek announces their fourth album, “EXPO”, with the lead single “Build a Box Then Break It”, out February 6th, 2026, via Full Time Hobby. The band,Rhys Edwards (vocals, guitar), Rhys Williams (guitar), Joseph Stone (guitar, keys), Callum Brown (drums), and Syd Kemp (bass), self-produced the album, recording between London and Stockholm.
“Our music has always been a collage, a bit patchwork, sonically, but what makes this album a landmark for us is that we went one step further and made our own sound bank and essentially sampled ourselves,” the band explains. They layered digital drums over real drums, creating doppelgängers in sound, an eerie, spectral approach to production.
“Build a Box Then Break It” captures this method perfectly. Washes of synth sweep across the stereo field while crashing, jazzy drums recall Portishead. Everything glitches pleasingly, with Edwards’ vocals occupying that uncanny, Thom Yorke-adjacent space.
Edwards wrote material while awaiting the birth of his daughter, wondering what kind of world she’d inherit. Following 2023’s “Compact Trauma”, “EXPO” holds a mirror up to the world and captures a warped reflection informed by their recent American tour. Low Limit Vision edited the video, featuring live footage shot by Pedro Soler mixed with title cards and math equations.
Tracklist:
- Intro
- Picto
- I Could Just Do It
- Build a Box Then Break It
- This Time I’m Present
- Showroom Poetry
- Expo
- Square Root of None
- Weights & Measures
- A Modern Low
- Incomplete Symphony
