Nielson

On Friday 15 October 2021, Canto will be released, the second album of the collective for new music Big Bang (on the photo together with recording producer Frerik De Jong).

The Rhythm Method string quartet (Leah Asher, Marina Kifferstein, Meaghan Burke, and Carrie Frey) celebrates its 10th anniversary season with the release of Pastorale, featuring three works written for the group by Lewis Nielson, Paul Pinto, and ensemble violinist Marina Kifferstein. Each piece, in its own way, grapples with questions of social awareness, engagement, and collectivism, all of which is consistent with The Rhythm Method's commitment to meaningful artistic inquiry since its inception.

''Sex & Food' is a delightfully shapeshifting album that filters real-deal serious themes through a vibrant sonic lens that spans battered drum machine funk, doomy and thrashing rock and pinkhued psychedelic disco. Ever since they burst on the scene with blog-favourite ‘Ffunny FFriends’, Unknown Mortal Orchestra have wilfully proved themselves ready to wrong-foot all of us at each turn. Led by New Zealand’s Ruban Nielson, they followed up on that buzzy single with a fully-formed, self-titled debut in 2011 that proved the hype was well placed. Next, ‘II‘, saw them dabble with a mainstream sound while keeping their sound firmly rooted in their scuzzy origins, and 2015’s ‘Multi-Love’ was a glorious psychedelic romp through Prince-tinged pop. It seemed only natural for them to continue boogie-ing towards the dancefloor and build on ‘Multi-Love”s dancier elements.

While recording Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s latest release, Sex & Food, Ruban Nielson, his longtime collaborator Jacob Portrait and his brother Kody Nielson, found themselves in the Vietnamese city of Hanoi playing and recording with local musicians at Phu Sa Studios. The studio, normally used for traditional Vietnamese music, found the band jamming on sessions dubbed IC-01 Hanoi: exploring the outer edges of the band’s influences in Jazz, Fusion and the avant-garde.

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.

Often involved in events run by the Anti-Apartheid Movement, South African-born, UK-based percussionist, band leader, record label owner and concert promoter, Julian Bahula presents the amazing “Son of the Soil”.

"Wicked System of Things was written and recorded very quickly in early 2017. It was partly inspired by a show I had played with Cheap Trick in January. After the show, Tom Peterson (who I’ve known for a long time) and I had discussed he and Rick Nielson playing bass and guitar on something of mine, and needless to say I was giddy about the idea! With this in mind I immediately started about a week of writing, then recorded drums with Ric Menck, and even though it never worked out for the Cheap Trick guys to play on the record (we both had new albums and extensive touring coming last summer) I quickly finished up the project playing bass myself, with Jason Victor playing most of the guitars…"