Unknown Mortal Orchestra

It’s mid-May and Unknown Mortal Orchestra have just finished playing the TV On The Radio-curated All Tomorrow’s Parties in the UK. Jake Portrait, the Portland, Oregon-based bass-playing contingent of the psych-garage trio, is chuffed.

“We didn’t know them (TVOTR) before this party that they had, but they’re awesome people,” says Portrait in his languid burr, punctuating his speech with the first of many ‘awesomes’.

“Really, really great people,” he continues, excited at the prospect of seeing them the Brooklyn band when they reunite at Australia’s Splendour In The Grass, “and Frank Ocean obviously, I listen to his album all the time,” says Portrait.

Without prompt, he’s provided the perfect jumping off point to discuss the Unknown Mortal Orchestra member’s other chief occupation: producer. And what better album to shoot the breeze about over production techniques than the eclectic smorgasbord of Channel Orange?

“The first time I heard it, it sounded like Elton John. It sounded like Yellow Brick Road or something,” he recalls. “I was totally flawed… It was super-lush, but it seems pretty spread out.”

“The more I talk about it the more I realise I really love it,” he concludes with a laugh of surprise. “I haven’t thought about it this much, it is pretty incredible.”

He’s not alone in his awe for Frank Ocean’s Grammy-winning debut but Portrait in particular loves “the drumming… the bass lines,” and that it “also feels like a stoner record.”

Portrait should know, as part of Unknown Mortal Orchestra, he’s helped bring two eponymous records of hedonistically charged, soul-infused psychedelia  to life. “Ruban’s a total recording, record-obsessed weirdo too – obviously, you can tell by listening to his music.”

While Portrait is a producer by trade, the man who gets full credit (and fairly so, as Portrait later adjudicates) for UMO’s all-important sound is Ruban Nielson, and the story of the ex-Mint Chicks guitarist who caused a blogosphere feeding frenzy after anonymously leaking the first UMO tracks is a well-trodden one.

But what gets less attention is the camaraderie that subtly informs Nielson’s work ethic and methods to create the fired 60s junkshop funk and acid RnB that mottles his records. That’s where Jake Portrait comes in.

“I would say I’m probably most useful in the times between recording,” informs Portrait when asked about his role in aiding Nielson in realising his aural achievements.

“I wonder what Ruban would think about this, but we just talk about this stuff endlessly,” continues the bassist. “It’ll kind of be like, we’ll be listening to something together and saying ‘oh man, the drums. Oh, the chord changes’ – go on and on and on about it. And then get off tour and Ruban would go make a song and he’ll bring it back to me and I’ll say ‘it kind of sounds like this’ maybe it was something that we were talking about before and he’ll be ‘yeah dude, you nailed it. That was inspiring.’”

So while Portrait clearly enjoys the freedom of association with Nielson, he’s got plenty to keep him occupied besides as a well-known musical figure in his native Portland. He’s a member of local indie band Blouse and has a neat sideline in engineering and mixing; his credits include credits for fellow Oregon inhabitants the Dandy Warhols and the likeminded Wampire.

With so many duties, does Portrait ever find splitting his time a struggle? “It just means I’m working all the time, which I like,” he answers with the satisfaction of a man who has struck the work-life balance.

“So I’m pretty into it, like I said, it’s a lot of work and scheduling is obviously pretty hard. But it’s really fun.”

It only helps that “[He’s] really into it,” adds Portrait. “Ruban’s a total recording, record-obsessed weirdo too – obviously, you can tell by listening to his music – I’ll make a record in between tours and he’ll be working on music and we’ll get in the van, get in the plane, and we’ll swap what we’re working on and analyse.”

As Portrait winds on, a mix of admiration and awe to his tone, it’s clear that his relationship with Nielson is far deeper than a working one. It’s practically a friendship verging on mutual bromance.

“That’s kind of really where I fit into the whole equation, I pop over to Ruban’s house and track some bass and hang out when I can.”

His anecdotes of these hang-outs are not only awesome fan fodder, but offer an insight into Nielson’s obsessive working process.“Obviously when you’re taking drugs it changes the way you perceive things, I don’t know what’s essential, but it’s certainly awesome.”

“Since the first record [Ruban] has this thing where he used to show up at my studio and stay all night,” Portrait rattles. “I would leave at like one or two in the morning and he’d be like in another room at the warehouse working on a track.”

“I’d finish something, I’d go home, I’d come back at like noon and he’d be passed out with empty bags of [onion chips snack] Funyuns and soda and weed and I’d find him sleeping in the corner of the warehouse and he would have made like ‘Bicycle’ from the first album,” the UMO bassist reveres. “And it would be entirely finished.”

“[It’s] one of the things that works for Ruban, and I’ve been a big advocate of; he works really fast and this system for him is really good,” concludes Portrait, who also helped usher in this year’s Unknown Mortal Orchestra II just shy of 18 months of its predecessor.

“When we were touring the first album we got into a conversation when he was like ‘what should we do for the next one?’” recounts Portrait. “I used The Strokes [Room On Fire] as an example, ‘I think you should do the exact same thing again… You should just go in, do it how you’ve been doing it. There’s nothing wrong with the system that you have. It works, people like what you do!’ So you know what I mean? I feel like a buddy that’s just like ‘man, you’re killing it – you’re doing great!’”

Portrait, Nielson, and drummer Riley Geare are also being paired with another set of buddies when they arrive to play sideshows for Splendour this month; San Diego beach punks Wavves.

“They’re super-fun and they’re cool guys, I’m pretty psyched about that… we have some pretty incredible stories.” Such as the time he and Wavves’ Nathan Williams and Stephen Pope “hung out all night at SXSW,” which was the catalyst for their Splendour sideshow pairing.

“Nathan was like ‘when are we going to do this?’ and I was like ‘man, we’ve been thinking the same thing.’ Then this Australian thing came about and yeah, it’s going to be an awesome show!”

Given the two bands’ open appreciation for drug taking, it’s safe to assume that there’s an extracurricular element that the band are looking forward to. After all it’s characterised each of UMO’s visits to Australia, including a memorable turn at the Northcote Social Club where a ragged punter wandered to front of stage, parting the audience like the Red Sea, then handed a tab of acid to Nielson before the benevolent dealer waded back into the crowd.

“I remember that, that was a fun night,” Portrait reminisces with a fond chuckle, noting with total honesty that similar occurrences happen frequently at their live show.

“I think just being the nature of the music and the reputation,” he continues; “me and Ruban are the only two that are consistent from the beginning, but yeah, that happens all the time. And we welcome it.”

It’s refreshing to hear Portrait discuss the drugs and music relationship so openly, especially given that UMO II enhances the opiate grooves without glorifying a lifestyle of chemical excess.

In fact, the darker, weary tone of the seven-minute ‘Monki’ and the unsettling ebullience of ‘Swim And Sleep (Like A Shark)’ are the surreal results of a band addled by the negative effectives of the come-down far more than they are animated by a mind-altering high.

“Drugs and music? I think it’s a really interesting relationship, because one of the things that I cannot seem to figure out how to articulate is what it feels like ‘to tour’,” Portrait intones.

“Even Elvis, even back then… it seems like just every person, man, or woman that you put into this scenario, there’s some complicacies there, they end up jumping into the drug world.”

Like the leagues of acid-fried hippies that have gone before in the former decades that UMO are so clearly fascinated by, the drug use shifts from being a recreational pursuit to becoming a coping mechanism, providing the glorious highs to contrast the crippling, numbing lows of the touring lifestyle, as Portrait explains.

“[Touring] is easily the coolest and most fun thing I’ve ever done in my life. The people that I’ve got to meet I would obviously never met before and there’s so many amazing places and people in the world,” he enthuses.

“But the exhaustion, the isolation, the consistency of movement – from day to day. You’re just constantly moving – at some point, the need to unplug the brain or ‘go somewhere else’ is pretty important.” “I think that this version of the band is too good to not put in the studio. So that’s kind of where we’re at.”

“Obviously when you’re taking drugs it changes the way you perceive things, I don’t know what’s essential,” he says grimly before adding with an impish chuckle, “but it’s certainly awesome.”

But Portrait is aware to downplay the inherent clichés as well, “one of the things that bothers me sometimes is the ‘UMO is on drugs!’” he mocks, “fucking everybody is, it’s the music industry!”

“These people came to do both: play music and take drugs,” he concludes matter-of-factly “So sometimes I feel a little funny about it, but often times it helps to tolerate the road, it helps fans enjoy the music, I have no real issue with it.”

There’s little concern that their chemical diet will disrupt the band’s consistency either way. They may have chewed through two drummers (first Julien Ehrich, then Greg Rogrove) in as many years, but any Spinal Tap-esque worries are unfounded.

“The band sounds really good right now, I’m really proud of it,” beams Portrait. “It sounds like the recordings and the music that Ruban’s been writing, the first time that it really is the same thing to me,” he jazzes. “I think that this version of the band is too good to not put in the studio. So that’s kind of where we’re at.”

Does this mean that we can expect a quick turnaround on an Uknown Mortal Orchestra III? “We’ve been talking a lot about ‘man, we’ve gotta put this band live in the studio and cut some tracks’. And also, not only that, but go into a [proper studio),” the producer/bassist illuminates.

“Because Ruban’s been making these records on nothing. He has very, very simple, inexpensive equipment that’s he been making these incredible recordings on, so I think he’s getting to the point now where’s he’s thinking ‘we should take the band into a real studio and bang it out’ and get some of that old gear that they made all of those great records on.”

If the ‘record-obsessed weirdo’ Nielson has managed to craft his antique-savvy aural fug without the use of actual antiques, there’s no telling what he can do with authentic vintage equipment. Something that Portrait is equally animated by, with no allusions to usurp Nielson as creative figurehead.

“I love playing in this band and I really love making records too so it feels a little bit like every day’s an awesome adventure,” he concludes. “I would say if I had to only do one;” he ponders before curtailing his own query with a giggle, “it would probably drive me nuts, I’d go crazy!”

Unknown Mortal Orchestra II is out now through Jagjaguwar, read our album review here. Unknown Mortal Orchestra play Splendour In The Grass and sideshows with Wavves this month. Dates and details below.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra 2013 Australian Tour

Friday 26th July – Splendour In The Grass – SOLD OUT
North Byron Parklands, Byron Bay
www.splendourinthegrass.com

Wavves and Unknown Mortal Orchestra
Saturday 27 July – Corner Hotel, Melbourne
Tickets on sale via venue online: www.cornerhotel.com or phone bookings: 1300 724 867. Also available from Polyester (City & Fitzroy)

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