V

Description

Created between Palm Springs, California and Hilo, Hawai’i, ‘V’ is the first double album from the Hawaiian-New Zealand singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Ruban Nielson’s Unknown Mortal Orchestra band. Designed to play as one continuous movement and road-tested on dry California freeways, ‘V’ is the definitive Unknown Mortal Orchestra car record. It’s also the fifth full-length album Ruban has released in twelve years. Across fourteen sunbleached songs – written solo or with his brother Kody – Ruban draws from the rich traditions of West Coast AOR, yacht rock, weirdo pop and Hawaiian Hapa-haole music. Over a laidback blend of singalong anthems and cinematic instrumentals, he evokes blue skies, afternoons spent lounging by hotel swimming pools and the alluring darkness that lurks below perfect, pristine surfaces. It’s a duality expressed in the dilapidated sunset blues and the salt-corroded soul Ruban explores through tracks like ‘Layla’ and ‘Nadja’.

Tracklisting

Disc 1
1. The Garden – Unknown Mortal Orchestra
2. Guilty Pleasures – Unknown Mortal Orchestra
3. Meshuggah – Unknown Mortal Orchestra
4. The Widow – Unknown Mortal Orchestra
5. In the Rear View – Unknown Mortal Orchestra
6. That Life – Unknown Mortal Orchestra
7. Layla – Unknown Mortal Orchestra
8. Shin Ramyun – Unknown Mortal Orchestra
9. Weekend Run – Unknown Mortal Orchestra
10. The Beach – Unknown Mortal Orchestra
11. Nadja – Unknown Mortal Orchestra
12. Keaukaha – Unknown Mortal Orchestra
13. I Killed Captain Cook – Unknown Mortal Orchestra
14. Drag – Unknown Mortal Orchestra