Unknown Mortal Orchestra is a psychedelic, indie, garage rock, R&B and lo-fi band founded in 2010 by Ruban Nielson, a former member of The Mint Chicks. The band is based in Portland, Oregon, but hails from New Zealand. Unknown Mortal Orchestra is currently engaged on the Jagjaguwar label, which has released four of its five albums.
Now known as one of the fastest growing rock bands in the country, the members of Unknown Mortal Orchestra seem to be craving more attention.
Origin
Unknown Mortal Orchestra was founded by a new New Zealand-born American musician named Ruban Nielson. Nielson was also the founder of his old band, The Mint Chicks, but after falling out with his old members he decided to start a new one. Fresh out of his old rock band, Nielson formed a new rock band in 2010, with Jake Portrait. They were later joined by Nielson’s younger brother, Kody Nielson, a member of The Mint Chicks.
Who are the unknown orchestra of mortals?
The band operates with Nielson as its lead singer, guitarist and songwriter; Jake Portrait as bassist; Kody Nielson as vocalist and drummer, among other temporary band members such as Gregory Rogove, Chris Nielson and Amber Baker. Julien Ehrlich joined the band in 2010 as drummer. Ehrlich left the band in 2012 to form his own band called Whitney.
First release of three albums
On June 21, 2011, the band released their debut album titled Unknown Mortal Orchestra. The album was released under Fat Possum Records in CD, LP, cassette and download format. The total duration of the album is 30 minutes 9 seconds. From the piece, two singles were released, the first was FunnyFfriends, released on May 17, 2010, and the second, Balling Thoughts, released on June 1, 2010. The album has a total of nine tracks and one bonus track.
The band’s second album is titled II. The piece was published on February 5, 2013, under Jagjaguwar. It was released in download, CD, LP and cassette format. The genre of this 40 minute and 25 second album is indie rock, psychedelic rock and lo-fi. The album was produced by Ruban Nielson and received a four out of five rating from AllMusic, an 8/10 rating from Hot Press, four out of five reviews from NME, three out of five stars from The Observer and Launch Fork rated 7.3/10. The album consists of ten tracks with no bonus track.
Multi-amour is the band’s third album. The album was released by Jagjaguwar on May 26, 2015. It was produced by Ruban Nielson, Kody Nielson and Jake Portrait. The nine tracks it contains last 42 minutes 15 seconds. It has been recorded as psychedelic rock, indie rock, indie pop, and psychedelic. Two singles were released from the album, Multi-Love and I Can’t Keep Checking My Phone. The latter was used as one of the tracks by EA Sports on its FIFA 16 video game side .
Other albums
Sex & Food is the band’s fourth album. The psychedelic, funk, rock, folk, R&B and disco album was released on April 6, 2018 by Jagjaguwar. The album was produced by Ruban Nielson and contains 12 songs with a duration of 40 minutes and 45 seconds. From the album, American Guilt, Not In Love, We’re Just High, and Everybody’s Splurging These Days were released as singles earlier the same year the album was released.
On October 26, 2018, the band dropped their fifth and final album to date, titled IC-01. The seven-track album was released by Jagjaguwar and is 28 minutes 10 seconds long. A single snippet from the experimental jazz and psychedelic rock album was released. The track Hanoi 6 was released as a single on September 25, 2018. The album was recorded in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Unknown Mortal Orchestra EP
Since the creation of Unknown Mortal Orchestra, the group has released 5 albums, an EP and 14 singles. On October 29, 2013, the band released their only EP titled Disque bleu. The piece consists of five tracks that last fifteen minutes. The EP was rated 3 out of 5 stars by AllMusic and 3½ stars out of 5 by Consequence of Sound.