With roots in the British underground psychedelic and experimental rock scenes of the 1980s and early 1990s, the band emerged in 1997 and soon gained attention for their "operatic prog-glam ambitions" and "violent reworking of the idiosyncratic compositions of Captain Beefheart and the staged ambisexual pop idioms of the likes of Marc Bolan and David Bowie".
Future Ultrasound singer/rhythm guitarist Andrew "Tiny" Wood was born in Birkenhead and began his musical career in 1980 (under the pseudonym of "Anna Virgina War") in the experimental/industrial trio Possession with Victor Watkins and Stephen Thrower.
Possession released one album on the A-Mission label in 1984 (The Thin White Arms, Obtusely Angled At the Elbow, Methodically Dipping and Emerging) before breaking up, with Thrower moving on to Coil the following year.
Joined by Hope's flute-playing wife Rachel Theresa, the five put together a psychedelic rock band called Sleepy People.
Andy Peace (who had left Sleepy People some time earlier than Wood, Green and Haslam) would also join Pop-A-Cat-A-Petal, replacing sometime drummer Steve Gilchrist.
It brought them some favourable press in NME, who described it as "(sounding) like The Who's Tommy - in its entirety - squeezed into four-and-a-half minutes... utterly heroic and bizarrely, by some distance, their most understated moment.
While the other band members went their separate ways to pursue new projects, Tiny Wood returned alone to Newcastle and briefly attempted to reform Ultrasound with a new line-up.
This included drummer Andy Peace, ex-Sleepy People bassist Bill Bailey, keyboard player Carly Graham and guitarist Adam Taylor.
The new version of Ultrasound performed their only live show at the Newcastle Arts Centre in the spring of 2000 but disbanded shortly afterwards due to lack of interest from all parties.
Wood remained in Newcastle and formed a new band called Siren with Carly Graham, Jayne Pearson, Leon Tighe and Pete Moffat.
Wood also took on the role of lead singer in Blue Apple Boy (featuring his former Sleepy People bandmates) and performed on their album Salient (Soma Sound, 2002).
Matt Jones went on to form Minuteman, and subsequently played and performed with many musicians, including Black Crowes front-man Chris Robinson's New Earth Mud, Engineers, Iain Archer, Beth Rowley, Baxter Dury and Jamie T. He also wrote the music for the film Thespian X. Vanessa Best and Andy Peace formed The Sunshine Valley Dance Band with former Spiritualized/Slipstream guitarist Mark Refoy.
In early 2010, Ultrasound were invited to reform for a benefit concert raising money for one of their key influences, Tim Smith of Cardiacs (who had suffered a debilitating heart attack and stroke in 2008).
Peverly and Waldman invited Ultrasound to make a third album, Real Britannia, which was recorded at only Factory Street Studios in Bradford throughout 2016 and was released in December 2016, with four-star reviews in Mojo, Uncut, Q and Prog Magazine.
The album was preceded in November 2016 by the 'Kon-Tiki' single and by Ultrasound's triumphant return to the live scene at the Scala, London, in which the band played new songs from Real Britannia.
Fans cited the show to be ' an incredible performance from an understated gem of the British rock scene'[citation needed] Following various delays and reschedulings relating to Covid-19 lockdowns, a twenty-first anniversary tour for Everything Picture was planned for the UK during summer 2021.