Artist

Unknown Mortal Orchestra

Auckland, New Zealand • Formed 2010

Unknown Mortal Orchestra is a music group from Auckland, New Zealand, active since 2010. Their discography on Gatefold includes 9 records.

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9

Albums tracked

94

In collections

2010

Since

Biography

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.

The Arc of Unknown Mortal Orchestra

The pivots — what forced Unknown Mortal Orchestra to reinvent.

  1. The Anonymous Basement Era

    Ruban was working a day job at an advertising agency and tracking songs in secret to escape the wreckage of his previous band. He used a cheap reel-to-reel and pushed the input gain until the drums crunched like a breakbeat record. This first self-titled record is basically a map of his isolation, where the vocals are buried so deep you have to strain to hear the hooks. It’s the sound of a guy reclaiming his hobby from the industry.

  2. The High-Fidelity Pivot

    Everything changed when Ruban moved the operation out of the bedroom and into a proper studio environment for Multi-Love. He obsessed over vintage synthesizers and Polymoogs, trading the fuzzy garage rock for a cleaner, R&B-inflected disco sound that dealt with his real-life polyamorous relationship. You can hear the shift in the low end; the bass lines got busier and the production opened up to let the light in. It was a risky move that could have been soft, but the songwriting was too sharp to fail.

  3. The Global Jazz-Rock Fusion

    On Sex & Food and V, the band became a family affair again with Kody Nielson and their father Chris contributing heavily to the sessions. They started tracking in different countries to capture the specific 'air' of the room, resulting in a sound that oscillates between heavy stoner-rock riffs and smooth, yacht-rock adjacent grooves. The gear got more sophisticated, but Ruban kept that weird, dry vocal chain that makes it sound like he’s whispering right into your ear. It’s the most settled the band has ever sounded, even when the lyrics are melting down.

Influences

  • Sly & The Family Stone — Ruban frequently cites 'There's a Riot Goin' On' as the blueprint for his dry, claustrophobic drum sounds. You hear it in the way the percussion on 'Multi-Love' feels tight and sucked-out rather than cavernous. It’s that same feeling of a party where everyone is a little too high.
  • The Beatles — The band covered 'Lucid Dream' and Ruban has gone on record about his obsession with the 'White Album' for its disjointed, collage-like structure. The psychedelic vocal harmonies on 'Swim and Sleep (Like a Shark)' are a direct descendant of McCartney’s 'Ram' era. It's pop music filtered through a slightly broken lens.
  • Frank Zappa — Ruban has praised Zappa’s ability to mix high-level jazz proficiency with total weirdness and crude humor. You can hear the 'Hot Rats' influence in the complex, chromatic guitar runs on 'V' and the jazz-fusion freakouts during their live jams. He’s one of the few modern guys who treats the guitar like a lead instrument without being a cornball about it.
  • J Dilla — The 'swing' of UMO’s drum tracks comes directly from Nielson’s love for Dilla’s MPC-3000 quantization. He’s admitted to trying to make live drums sound like they were sampled and chopped by a hip-hop producer. It gives the psych-rock tracks a head-nod factor that most indie bands miss.
  • Prince — The move toward falsetto vocals and heavy synth-funk was a calculated nod to the Purple One’s mid-80s output. Ruban has noted in interviews that Prince’s 'one-man-band' approach gave him the confidence to track almost everything himself in the early days. The strut in a track like 'Can't Keep Checking My Phone' is pure Paisley Park energy.

Discography

Their records — most-collected first.

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