The Sampler: Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Caroline Polachek, Surf Friends

Tony Stamp reviews new music from Ruban Nielson's Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Caroline Polachek and local duo Surf Friends.

V by Unknown Mortal Orchestra

The fifth album by Unknown Mortal Orchestra is named V – a suitably totemic title for a double LP that critics have described as a "magnum opus" and the band's label Jagjaguar has labelled a "masterpiece".

On V, a record that’s been building for years, frontman Ruban Nielson’s sense of humour is revealed alongside deeply felt themes regarding family.

Although the album's style of production has sparked debate, it can easily be read as a love letter to – and a showcase of – Nielsen’s instrument of choice, the guitar, and the unique way he plays it.

In the wake of V's release, there’s been chatter about Nielson’s fondness for low-fidelity sounds.

He’s been adamant that the approach is crucial, and when Pitchfork spent their review taking issue with it (as they have done for the past few UMO releases) he responded on Twitter by pointing out they also spelt his name wrong.

The sound of V aligns with some of Nielson’s named influences on the record – '70s and '80s album-oriented rock like Toto and Journey.

But while those bands' records cost a lot of money and had plenty of aural sheen to show for it, Nielson’s approach evokes a sort of imagined nostalgia for that era. 

His technique on the guitar jumps out in moments like the chorus of ‘That Life’ where he fires off a series of clipped notes between its refrain. 

The six-string is never the focus on UMO songs, it’s usually subsumed into the rest of the production along with generous amounts of bottom end on the kick drum, but Nielson’s playing is hugely accomplished and not too far from jazz in its approach – more about paired notes than power chords.

That influence comes into greater focus on ‘The Widow’ – a track with an emphasis on keys and Nielson’s dad Chris adding tenor saxophone.

Part of this album’s genesis involved Nielson moving to the Southern California town of Palm Springs, after suffering health issues and tour fatigue.

As he recently told NPR, “a laundry list of tragedies hit [his] family all at once” and led to him prioritising them over his career, although the two things wound up merging on V: the record was made with his brother Kody (who was in The Mint Chicks with Ruban and has contributed to the last three UMO records), and features his dad on several tracks, in addition to longtime collaborator Jacob Portrait.

Helping his mum move back to her birthplace of Hawaii informed the album, too.  The track ‘I Killed Captain Cook’ centres on events relayed to Nielson by his mother when he was a child and pays tribute to the hapa haole tradition of Hawaiian music sung in English.

Although the songs on V were evidently inspired by serious events they all have a light touch, similar to Ruban Nielson’s fleet-fingered approach to guitar playing. The influence of classic West Coast bands is there in a sort of musical optimism that sounds sun-kissed.

It took Nielson some time to realise the track ‘Layla’ was also a tribute to his mother, Nielson told NPR, and its refrain of "Let’s get out of this broken place” reflects a desire to keep moving that he shares with her.

There’s a kind of relief in that – a rejection of feeling bogged down and the idea that bad times can be moved past.

Desire, I Want to Turn Into You by Caroline Polachek

There’s a certain type of modern pop musician who may not qualify as a ‘star’ but draws adoration from titans of the genre as well as fans of indie and alternative music, and who within the confines of verses and chorus is unafraid to experiment and see how far the boat can be pushed.

American singer Caroline Polachek is a perfect example of this. Her second album Desire, I Want to Turn Into You, released earlier this year, is it’s filled with anthemic vocal hooks, dynamic percussion and arrangements that are often surprising.

‘Bunny is a Rider’ is a good example of the Polachek approach, with the type of synthetic, polyrhythmic drums that we associate with pop alongside a whistled hook, and more esoteric elements like a sampled baby’s gurgle, and enigmatic lyrics about an unavailable protagonist.

She’s no novice - from 2005 to 2016 making similar music in the duo Chairlift.

While this album is the second under her own name, Polachek put out two prior to that using pseudonyms and co-wrote the Beyonce song ‘No Angel’.

Musicians like Charli XCX and Dua Lipa have been vocal in their support, and while Polachek doesn’t draw the same streaming figures as them, she pushes further outward musically on tracks like ‘Sunset’, which draws influence from Spaghetti Western soundtracks.

There’s obvious songwriting talent here, with hooks treading the line between familiar and unpredictable, but it’s the arrangements that pay dividends.

On ‘Blood and Butter’, another track with a pleasingly ambiguous title, acoustic guitar supplied by Australian musician Kirin J Callinan adds extra charge, and more surprisingly, the inclusion of a bagpipe solo somehow makes perfect sense.

Moments like this evoke a particular kind of pop euphoria, with lyrics that are clearly about falling in love while remaining cryptic, and including words like ‘wikipediated’.

Similarly, Desire, I Want to Turn Into You says what it is plainly, but in a way that we haven’t heard before.

Love and lust are constant themes, looked at through different lenses.

On ‘Butterfly Net’ the brooding vibe and throwback production pair with lyrics about opportunities missed.

Desire, I Want to Turn Into You feels like a pop album that could win over genre naysayers. The craft is so sturdy, each melody carefully constructed, and Caroline Polachek always avoids taking the obvious route.

She’s also a fantastic singer, and for many listeners, that’ll be all that matters. But it’s how she sings at different moments, and what she surrounds her voice with depending on the song, that nudges this album into something really great.

Sonic Waves by Surf Friends

Musical press releases can often feel like works of art in and of themselves, grappling to express what the writer wants you to feel about the tunes. So the way Tāmaki Makaurau duo Surf Friends describe themselves feels thoroughly refreshing.

Their last album had a song called ‘Outdoors’, and the accompanying text said “The song speaks for itself, it’s about getting outdoors”.

Their fourth LP is called Sonic Waves, and those two words speak for themselves too, condensing a quote about the band which says they’re “two mates who love to surf and make music”.

This is songwriting with a clear ethos, and its simplicity is part of the point. “Nature you’ve got a way of telling us to slow down” they sing on ‘Dreaming’. On 'Wohoo' they repeat “Surfing / Skating” over and over.

Compositionally too the emphasis is on fun - these sometimes feel like jams captured on the fly, with stream-of-consciousness lyrics, but that might be intentional because the instrumentation is richly detailed.

The guitars are prominent but listen to ‘Good Thing’, for example, and you hear twanging synth, intricate drum programming, and slight changes in the aural detail.

The liner notes of Sonic Waves credit Brad Coley with guitar, vocals, keys, harmonica, and drum machine, and Pete Westmoreland with bass, keys, and vocals, and that listing has stayed the same since 2012.

The band often sticks to one-chord progression and plays with the types of noise they pile on top. Sometimes, as on ‘Signal On’, they add new notes that darken and complicate the recurring pattern.

Surf Friends are signed to Flying Nun, but when Pitchfork reviewed their 2010 record Confusion, they were on the more modest Powertool Records. That piece kept drawing comparisons between them and The Clean, and there’s definitely a lot of guitar jangle here, but these guys are more interested in riding one idea to fruition - Sonic Waves is an album with some long, rewarding durations.

‘Times What We Want’ is about the value of free time, and again it’s hard to argue with the purity of Surf Friends’ ethos. It’s also another track that aurally evolves and experiments. There’s a  maximalism in the layers of guitar, rhythms, and esoteric sounds around the edges which means those durations always pay off.

For a duo, Surf Friends produces an impressive amount of noise but their music is purposeful too, with an enveloping sensation not unlike being carried along by an ocean swell.