Neo-Psychedelic band Unknown Mortal Orchestra channel soul and funk on their most personal album yet.
Whilst 2011’s Unknown Mortal Orchestra and 2013 II saw UMO mine a rich seem of psychedelic guitar pop, they’ve now embraced soul and funk, while retaining elements of their psych past to create ‘Multi Love’ their most personal album to date. This slight change in sound is beneficial to the songs as, sadly for main man Ruban Nielson, they are about loss and heartache. But when are they not?
“The writing on this album was more abstract” Nielson said recently, but not abstract in an unlistenable way, Multi-Love is insanely catchy and after a few listens it feels better than your favourite jeans after a wash. Opening, and title track Multi-Love doesn’t start with a wall of psych exploration, but with a simple riff and Nielson’s vocals, its only later that things start to get woozey and murky. ‘Like Acid Rain’ is a straight up soul funk classic, sounding like Jamie Lidell covering Prince covering Sly Stone, here UMO are locked in the groove. Can’t Keep Checking My Phone sees guitars duel with horns until the synths and drums kick in; all back up by an animated and effervescent bassline.
“It felt good to be rebelling against the typical view of what an artist is today, a curator. Our society wants to curate and consume” Nielson has said “I wanted to be the guy behind the scenes, to demonstrate multiple skills and make it transparent” Multi-Love has transparency in abundance. At times it’s hard to see where Nielson’s playing ends and the other musicians on the album start.
The stand out moment though is final track Puzzles It appears that he’s had enough covering his tracks through layers of production, and decided to let it all hang out. The beat sounds slightly chopped and compressed, but by the time the chorus kicks in you can’t even hear it over a maelstrom of vocals and guitars all fighting for your attention. The outro makes his stripped acoustic guitar sound like a sitar, until it ends up fading out, unassumingly. But that’s the story of the album. Every track is subtle, unassuming but totally in your face at the same time. So far it’s taken two years for every UMO album to emerge, so see you in 2017 then Ruben, yeah?
[Rating:3]
