Unknown Mortal Orchestra works way into known realm, partly by accident

Ruban Nielson was ready to abandon music for good when he wrote and recorded a song called “Ffunny Ffrends” in 2010, uploading it to Bandcamp with no fanfare and crediting it to Unknown Mortal Orchestra. He had just moved to Portland from his native New Zealand, and his pop-punk band the Mint Chicks had broken up. After several years without any major success, he was ready to try something new.

But a funny thing happened: Several indie music blogs discovered the song and started circulating it, and the fact that no one knew anything about Unknown Mortal Orchestra was tantalizing. Nielson, who hadn’t expected anyone to even find the track, started getting offers from record labels almost immediately.

“I just thought no one would ever listen to it,” Nielson said. “It was a really weird – I don’t even want to say ‘pleasant’ – surprise, because at first it seemed really ironic. I don’t try at all, and all of a sudden … a bunch of my favorite labels were fighting over my music. Maybe not caring is a good way for me to go on to my new career.”

Unknown Mortal Orchestra is now more than just an online curio and critical darling: Nielson has released two well-received albums with a third on the way, and he and his touring band will kick-start their tour in Spokane on Sunday.

Nielson mostly works alone in the studio – he’s the only featured musician on much of Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s records – which he attributes mostly to his exhaustive, hands-on work ethic.

“I work at such strange hours when I’m recording, and I’m pretty obsessive,” he said. “I think I’m kind of hard to collaborate with, because I do so much work in between the times when everybody’s available. Even when my bandmates are getting involved, they’ll always end up doing a little bit and then I’ll end up just finishing the record before the next session. I’m working all night, every night. … I don’t want to wait for anybody. I want to keep going while the inspiration is there.”

But when he does collaborate with other musicians, namely those who play with him on the road, Nielson says he encourages them to play around with the songs.

“I consider the records and the touring as separate things that I put equal weight on,” he said. “Because I’ve had some success with working by myself, I kind of keep going back to that. But I want the musicians I play with to feel like they can express themselves. We try to play a different set every night and have certain sections where the songs open up. I’m open to (other) interpretations of the material.”

UMO’s earlier output consisted of fuzzed-out psychedelia, dreamy recordings that sounded like they could have easily been dispatches from the summer of 1967. The upcoming album, titled “Multi-Love,” has a heavier funk and R&B influence, and the two new singles that have been released this year are less airy and aloof than previous songs. That development is due in part to increased production time – Nielson estimates “Multi-Love” took nearly a year to complete, as opposed to the three or four months the previous albums took – and to a shift in stylistic influences.

“The old stuff is more – I guess people call it ‘lo-fi,’ ” Nielson said. “It was influenced by a lot of music from the late ’60s, early ’70s, like Sly and the Family Stone and the Beatles, and a bit of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. This new one, I think, opened up to things more from the late ’70s: I was listening to (David) Bowie a lot, and it has some influence from disco. And it’s not really lo-fi at all.

“The first two (albums) were kind of the same – they kind of go together as a set. This new one’s a big leap. … I was just feeling more ambitious.”