Unknown Mortal Orchestra – in session for Marc Riley – BBC 6 Music – June 14, 2023 – BBC Radio
Diving into some Unknown Mortal Orchestra tonight, recorded and broadcast live for Marc Riley at BBC 6 Music just yeserday (June 14th).
I remember when I first heard Unknown Mortal Orchestra via the old (and much lamented) My Space, around the same time another band, Tame Impala were also creating waves. It was a period of time where Psychedelia and full-on experimenting with sounds and combinations started to catch a lot of attention to people who were looking for something interesting to latch on to.
A lot has happened since their first album – a pandemic, for one thing – and a lot of introspection and vast periods of down time, which only served to steer Unknown Mortal Orchestra off in further directions.
This session, done for Marc Riley at BBC 6 Music focuses a lot on the latest album, V, which has once again been enthusiastically received by fans and critics.
For a bit of background: Unknown Mortal Orchestra (UMO) is a New Zealand psychedelic rock band formed in Auckland and currently based in Portland, Oregon, USA. Primarily composed of singer, guitarist, and songwriter Ruban Nielson, and bassist Jacob Portrait, the band was started by Nielson in 2010. The band’s debut album was released in 2011 on Fat Possum Records. In November 2013, the band’s second album, II, won Best Alternative Album at the New Zealand Music Awards.
In late 2010 the band’s bandcamp account featured their single ‘Ffunny Ffrends’, a sort of alien beatnik pop music that echoed 60s psychedelia and krautrock minimalism with just a hint of gentle weirdness that suggested its roots might equally lie in the verdant indie of the equally distant New Zealand scene.
Ruban Nielson is a New Zealand native who transplanted to Portland, Oregon, USA with his band The Mint Chicks. UMO was a project conceived as Ruban’s escape hatch to a new musical dimension where his vision of junkshop record collector pop could be realized in a sound that recalled Captain Beefheart, Sly Stone and RZA jamming on some kids TV theme too dark to ever be broadcast.
The eponymous UMO debut album was released in 2011 on Fat Possum Records, followed by II (2013), Multi-Love (2015), Sex & Food (2018), IC-01 Hanoi (2018) and V (2023).
Enjoy the show. They are currently on tour – it’s suggested (firmly but gently) you fall by their website and check to see where they are headed next – they’ll be on the road from June 16th to November 19.
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