The world’s a serious place right now, but it feels more crucial now than ever to remember some of the not-rubbish things out there – so much so that Unknown Mortal Orchestra‘s upcoming album is literally titled ‘Sex & Food’. Speaking to NME, frontman Ruban Nielson said, “the record picked up a lot of heavy themes, so I wanted to keep it dumb”, when discussing the album’s title. But if you’re knee-deep in UMO’s extensive discography, you’ll know that their music is anything but dumb.
Take the album’s lead single, ‘American Guilt’, which was inspired by Nielson’s move to the US a decade ago. He became acutely aware of the politics, history and more of the nation, and that “guilt suddenly settled into me” – ideas that pair strongly with perhaps the heaviest song they’ve ever released. There’s ‘Honeybee’ a delightful blend of lounging disco and addictive pysch-pop that was written for his daughter – and the slightly less fuzzy ‘Everyone Acts Crazy Nowadays’. Let Nielson give you the lowdown in the video above…