Unknown Mortal Orchestra

In 2013, I was in a hotel lobby in Hanoi when a co-traveller pressed his headphones over my ears to share what he was listening to. A rollingly lethargic, highly distinctive guitar riff bounced around my head, and has been bouncing around it ever since. I turned on the gap year drifter: which song was this, and by which band? 

It turned out to be ‘So Good at Being in Trouble’, 2013’s breakout hit by Unknown Mortal Orchestra. This band, hailing from New Zealand but now translocated across America’s west coast, form one third of the Antipodean ‘psychedelic’ triptych, alongside Tame Impala and King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard. Given the pace that musical tastes change, it now almost seems anachronistic to enjoy and pay attention to the scene. This feeling was cemented by Tame Impala’s recent, eyebrow raising foray into techno fusion. 

Unknown Mortal Orchestra (or UMO to fans) were often the more obscure of this triptych; less underground cultic than the relentless acid jam productivity of King Giz, and never attaining the pervading global virulence (and commercial streaming success) of Tame Impala. The lead singer and songwriter, Ruban Nielson, has said he dislikes the genre tag of psychedelic for his particular project: ‘depression funk’ is, in his view, a more apt description. Under this lens, UMO can be seen as an obvious symptom of the Pollockisation of culture, i.e., its severe fracture into a messy, vibrant kaleidoscope of niche artistic formats and tastes. This is something Nielson has alluded to. UMO are, perhaps more so than Tame Impala and King Giz, distinctive and quite unlike anything that came before them. Hendrix is an admitted influence for UMO’s riff heavy music, and Nielson is by any measure a virtuoso. He is now regarded by many as the most technically accomplished guitarist within the contemporary independent scene. 

I last saw UMO in April 2023, almost three years ago to the day, at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Toronto, as they embarked on their first tour in four years to promote their album V. This album centres on Nielson’s experience growing up through a bucolic but financially impoverished island life childhood in Hawaii and New Zealand (Nielson is of mixed indigenous Māori and Hawaiian ancestry). It is infused by a tropical paranoia, introduced by the portentous, foreboding piano of ‘The Garden’, a song whose austerity is benchmarked by the enigmatic warning of the chorus: 

‘Hold on tight
‘Cause it’s violent after dark
In the garden’

The 2023 live show was introduced with this song as well, and on reflection this may have produced a sort of halo effect. Starting a live show with ‘The Garden’, the piano rolling out to an expectant crowd under the smoke-obscured red lighting of a large neon V sign, created such a sense of atmosphere that the crowd was completely sold for the rest of the show. After that, they could do no wrong. 

To start any show with a song other than ‘The Garden’ is folly, but alas this is the route UMO decided to take for their recent four show residency at Evolutionary Arts Hackney (‘EartH’). As a result, these performances could never live up to the V tour. UMO have given me no option but chastisement. 

That’s not to say the residency was in any way a poor showing. There are some good (though ultimately insufficient) arguments for not starting these shows with ‘The Garden’: this tour was clearly focused on showcasing (and indulging) UMO’s passion for jamming, and was not linked to any specific album, giving UMO a huge amount of flexibility as to what they pursued on stage. Each show was therefore full of protracted mid-song jam sessions, musical rabbit holes and indulgent guitar solos. The setlist was chopped up for each performance. The experience was altogether Dead Headian, and at times Nielson even opted to play while sitting cross legged on the stage, which felt like veritable Jerry Garcia behaviour. ‘The Garden’ could have proved an oddly sombre start to this sort of set.

Some songs were flipped on their heads with new interpretations; I didn’t realise some of my favourite tracks were being played until half-way through, including an impossibly lo-fi version of the well aged deep cut ‘Faded in the Morning’. The crowd was also treated to several well-picked covers, including Can’s ‘Vitamin C’ on the Wednesday night. In response, about a dozen people leapt to their feat in admiration, providing a neat map of the Can fans present in the crowd. 

Nielson, who studied at the Elam School of Fine Arts in Auckland, brings a colourful waviness to the band’s architecture; their merchandise is of a 60s psychedelic hue, and stands out among their peers. Their onstage accoutrement was joined by an enthusiast, left of stage, who appeared to be drawing on a raised podium desk while facing the band. It seems like this artist was creating the eye-catching setlist artwork that can be found on Reddit. 

The choice of EartH Theatre as the venue for an UMO residency felt like something of a misfire, with the seating creating a sense of repression until the more kinetic parts of the repertoire were played. A gradual stream of the more extroverted fans descended the steps of the seating area to form a small crowd by the stage as the shows progressed; this stream flooded when the popular Hunnybee was played mid-set, a sort of euphoric release of pent-up energy. A standing venue would perhaps have been advisable. 

The gloominess of the venue matched the ‘depression funk’ weirdness of UMO’s music, and collectively it did not create the sense of euphoria I experienced at their Toronto show in 2023, which served to release me from my post 9-5 haze. 

Yet I was unable to drag myself away from an unexpected mid-song jam interpretation during the antepenultimate ‘Multi-Love’ on the final night, as I sought to catch a convenient train home. And as the band bowed together at the end of this last set, I was filled with a certain sense of pride and affection for the strange Kiwi band on stage, who continue to produce fascinating, technically impressive music, interspersed with moments of sheer beauty. I missed my train, but felt better for it. 

It was perhaps not their best, but they are competing against their own high standards. Any lover of guitar music would be well advised to catch an indulgent UMO x Nielson jam session and/or guitar solo, as and when the next opportunity arises.