Libba Smith
A&E Editor
As a liberal arts student myself, I have no shame in saying that I secretly love to be ahead of trends and then roll my eyes when they gain popularity. I have explained to many of my friends from home that I am already sick of Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’s “Thrift Shop” because I was listening to it before it played on the radio.
Students at the College of Wooster have previously been able to give that smug smile (Wiz Khalifa opened Springfest the year before “Black and Yellow” was released, we had K’naan before “Waving Flag” was played incessantly as one of the theme songs of the 2010 World Cup), but another opportunity to make that haughty claim before our less worldly friends is rapidly approaching.
The New Zealand trio Unknown Mortal Orchestra (UMO), who played at Wooster last fall, is steadily gaining popularity with the release of their second album, which has the somewhat uncreative title “II.” This album has the same dreamy, atmospheric rock of the band’s self-titled debut, but its nearly doubled running time gives the band much more room to experiment and the listener more time to get lost in the music.
Wooster hosted UMO last fall in Lowry Lounge, selected by Wooster Activities Crew (WAC) Small Concert Series Director Ben Fuqua ’14. After “scouring cool music websites for bands that had some buzz and sounded good,” Fuqua booked the New Zealand trio. He had high hopes for the show, but the actual concert “exceeded his expectations;” the band members were polite and easy to work with, if very quiet, and the show itself was very well received by students. Since their knockout Wooster performance, UMO has toured with Grizzly Bear, and appeared on “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” just this week. The band is currently on a world tour, with many dates already sold out.
Since Fuqua is much more of a music expert, I will give his review in brief: “listening to the first UMO album was like listening to side A of a beat-up mix tape you found in the glove box of your weird hippie uncle’s Lincoln. This album is side B.”
This somewhat convoluted metaphor aptly describes the journey of listening to “II,” in which the listener discovers something delightfully unique in each track. The music is hypnotically, addictively layered in the best way, pulling in the listener and creating a psychedelic state of mind that only becomes more satisfying with each listen.
“II” begins with its two best songs, “So Good at Being in Trouble” and “Swim and Sleep (Like a Shark),” which is literally about the narrator’s desire to swim and sleep like a shark. The latter is definitely my favorite song; the image itself is oddly compelling, but the lyrics are sentimental and introspective for a song about wanting to be a sea creature, with lines like “I’d fall to the bottom / And I’d hide ’til the end of time.” To be honest, in the course of reviewing this album, I returned to this song over and over again, and it’s constantly stuck in my head. The middle tracks drift somewhat aimlessly through long guitar solos, but the experience of listening to them is still highly enjoyable and perpetuates the dreamy tone of the album.
My love for this album grows the more I listen to it. I hear something different with every play, even in my favorite songs. Wooster students, grow familiar with Unknown Mortal Orchestra, even if only to know about them before your friends; I predict a long future for this band.