A lot has changed since 2019 when singer, songwriter and musician Ruban Nielson began working on Unknown Mortal Orchestra‘s fifth studio album, V. Initially named Guilty Pleasures, the project transformed and evolved over time. “It’s like four years of music,” Ruban (who is Hawaiian and Maori, grew up in New Zealand and is currently based in Palm Springs) tells us. “There were quite a few different …
Following “I Killed Captain Cook,” Unknown Mortal Orchestra has released “Layla”—both tracks from the highly anticipated upcoming double album, V (out 17 March). Frontman Ruban Nielson, who is of Hawaiian and Maori heritage, says the sound was inspired by “the rich traditions of West Coast AOR, classic hits, weirdo pop and Hawaiian Hapa-haole music.”
On their first two albums, Portland-based Unknown Mortal Orchestra charmed fans with dirty low-fi tracks—poppy but unafraid to be thought-provoking—recorded out of a basement studio. Their third and latest effort, Multi-Love (out now via Jagjaguwar) was born in the same basement studio, but from the ashes of exhaustion, depression and too many drugs. Like a phoenix reborn in explosive sheen of disco and R&B and …
