T How avoiding the spotlight actually helped Unknown Mortal Orchestra find it BY SETH SOMMERFELD
SECRET AGENTS
his is the hyperinformation age. Most questions can be answered in seconds by typing an Internet search into a mobile phone. We feel closer than ever to celebrities, musicians, and just about anyone else thanks to social media tools like Twitter and Facebook. You can even figure out the title and artist of almost any song by holding up your phone and using the Shazam app. So when Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s first song “Ffunny Ffrends” hit the web in 2010 and set the indie blogosphere on fire, it was an exciting anomaly: everyone loved the song, but nobody knew who made it. The track was lo-fi psychedelic rock at its best — teeming with a mix of washed-out garage rock aesthetics and a notable sense of pop melodicism. Despite praise from modern tastemakers like Pitchfork, the song’s creator stayed in the shadows. And that’s just how Ruban Nielson wanted it. Nielson created Unknown Mortal Orchestra in his basement and released it without credit as a way of actively objecting to the interconnectivity of the modern music machine. “The Internet cheapened the way bands promote themselves and damaged the mystique,” says Nielson. “Musicians were becoming their own marketing teams, and that was gross, and my refusal to do that ended up being what attracted people to it, I think. I felt the song was strong enough to stand on its own anyway.” In Nielson’s opinion, the initial mystery surrounding “Ffunny Ffrends” offered something that seems alien in a world increasingly defined by complex interconnectivity: simplicity. ...continued on next page
JUNE 13, 2013 INLANDER 113