Whether gripping the thrilling hairpin turns of "Bicycle", arranging complex lattices of syncopation on "Thought Ballune", or simply doubling down on his own leads on "Ffunny Ffriends", he converses with the inventive guitar playing like he's making a sales pitch. And while Nielson often works in an androgynous, bristling tone that's certainly ingratiating on its own merits, it's more remarkable for its sophisticated approach to melody. When a singer gets praised for incorporating his or her voice like another instrument in the mix, it's usually a reference to texture. It's hardly alone in sounding like a readymade breakbeat, so it's not surprising that the cratedigging likes of El-P, ?uestlove, and Das Racist have all taken to tweeting UMO's praises.īut the sound wouldn't matter without songwriting. The tortured but deceptively joyous hook from "How Can You Luv Me?" does plenty to draw you in, to the point where it might take the fifth listen to focus on just how limber the rhythm section is. But for bandleader Ruban Nielson, it feels like a natural songwriting mode. Funk too often comes off as a jittery affectation or genre exercise even for rock bands who are pretty good at it. The major difference for UMO is that their grit radiates from the inside out. Though obviously more camera shy than Sleigh Bells or Cults, UMO represents a similar merger of simple and catchy melodies lovingly marooned in a raw, buzzcut production that puts an emphasis on the beats. None of the ambiguity would matter if UMO didn't spring to life from the first happily bopping seconds of "Ffunny Ffriends" and provide a half hour of rich analog sizzle that extends far beyond its meager recording budget (seriously, try and find it on vinyl, if possible). But there's still something eerily extraterrestrial about their debut LP, as if it were something that fell from the sky completely intact. You wonder if it might be an artifact from some psych-rock acid casualty, a long-forgotten Kiwi-popper, or an Elephant 6 offshoot. You want to poke at it, prod it, and try to carbon date it. Some time after, those songs started being performed live by human beings who do mundane things like wear Baja drug rugs, live in Portland, and maintain an active Twitter feed.
Protracted mystery can cause as much skepticism as the most overt press blitz, and information had been scarce since they popped up last year with a Bandcamp page of intriguing and untraceable songs.
Perhaps we'd all be better off if it was always "all about the music, man." But until recently, most discussion of Unknown Mortal Orchestra understandably went from lauding the unshakeable hooks of " Ffunny Ffriends" and "How Can You Luv Me?" to wondering why, true to their name, they remained anonymous.
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