Portland-via-New Zealand psych rockers Unknown Mortal Orchestra will release their new album, Sex and Food, April 16th via JagJaguwar. The band also shared a new music video for the record’s first single, “American Guilt.”
Director/animator Greg Sharp helmed the clip, pairing the grimy, heavy sounds of “American Guilt” with a vivid junkyard panorama packed with old clothes, half-eaten food, porno mags, children’s toys and briefcases filled with money.
“‘American Guilt’ is an attempt to capture some of the feelings floating around these days,” Nielson said of the song. “In a perverse way I wanted to embrace this abandoned genre of rock music that I keep reading is ‘dead’ and invite people to hear what this living dead genre sounds like in the UMO universe.”
Unknown Mortal Orchestra recorded Sex and Food in Seoul, South Korea, Hanoi, Vietnam, Reykjavik, Iceland, Mexico City, Aukland, New Zealand and Portland. “American Guilt” epitomizes the global nature of the record, with Nielson saying, “It was recorded in Hanoi, Vietnam during monsoon season in a studio built for traditional Vietnamese music. Additional recording was done in Mexico City but our sessions were interrupted by one of the devastating earthquakes that occurred there last year. As we slept in the Parque de Mexico, unable to get back to our Airbnb, we heard a man yell ‘viva la Mexico!’ and I put this in the song out of respect for them.”
Unknown Mortal Orchestra will embark on a North American tour in support of Sex and Food April 22nd in Northampton, Massachusetts. Over the course of the tour, the band will receive support from Makeness and Shamir.
Sex and Food Track List
1. “A God Called Hubris”
2. “Major League Chemicals”
3. “Ministry of Alienation”
4. “Hunnybee”
5. “Chronos Feasts on His Children”
6. “American Guilt”
7. “The Internet of Love (That Way)”
8. “Everyone Acts Crazy Nowadays”
9. “This Doomsday”
10. “How Many Zeros”
11. “Not in Love We’re Just High”
12. “If You’re Going to Break Yourself”
