close button

Unknown Mortal Orchestra: II - review

Mar 24, 2013 Music

UMO-II-

What the hell did UMO do with the proceeds ($10k, plus benefits) of last year’s Taite Music Prize? The cash certainly wasn’t pumped into II, with its intentional sonic degradation: voices that sound like they’re straight off 100-year-old wax cylinders, bass that’s marooned in cotton wool, drums that reverberate with all the density of a plastic spoon on cardboard.

Former Mint Chick Ruban Nielson and his Portland-based group are as infatuated with psychedelic-era groups like Spirit and Love as they are with the recent, and now already passé, trend known as Hypnagogic Pop. Neither of them helps.

 

Latest

Latest issue shadow

Metro N°440 is out now!

With progressive councillors starting to score some wins under what was anticipated to be a reactionary major, Hayden Donnell asks: Has Wayne Brown gone woke?
Plus: we go out and investigate Auckland’s nightlife (or in some cases, the lack thereof), with best bars (with thanks to Campari); going-out diaries from Chlöe Swarbrick, BBYFACEKILLA.mp3, Poppa.Jax & more; a look into Auckland’s drugs by Don Roew (who’s holding and how much they paid for it); we go on the campaign trail with Willie Jackson, talk to gallerist Michael Lett, drink martinis and alternative wines, start seeing a therapist, visit Imogen Taylor’s studio, look into Takutai Tarsh Kemp’s wardrobe. And more!

Buy the latest issue