Just last month, UMO celebrated 10 years of their 2013 debut album. Since then, their spirited music has gained critical acclaim, and helped them sell out world tours. The band – primarily Nielson and bassist Jake Portrait – began in 2010 in Auckland, when the former anonymously released a Soundcloud track into the wild. Experts in alternative ambivalence, UMO are innovators of the bittersweet, often grouped with previous touring partners, Foxygen. The latest, V, a double offering, is stuffed full of warm, homemade instrumentals and fuzzy future classics that could only come from the creators of their once shed-crafted sound.
If the latter is accurate, then UMO could now be considered masters in mental health music. “Depression funk” is another fan-favourite. “I’ve always made up genre names,” he tells me, offering up suggestions like “Dad-wave” and “trouble-gum”. For Nielson, perfection has always taken a backseat when it comes to the band’s distinctive DIY sound, which he finds impossible to sum up. “My mixing is bad, and my recording is purposefully amateurish sometimes, but I’m trying to concentrate on how to deliver something that feels worth saying.” The New Zealand-Hawaii singer is calling on Zoom from his dimly lit basement studio in Portland, where it’s just begun snowing. I know there are things wrong with my music,” says Ruban Nielson, vocalist and guitarist of psych-rock band Unknown Mortal Orchestra.
