Saturday 02.25.12: Filter Presents: UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA with WHITE ARROWS @ Echoplex

8:30pm / $12adv; $15dos; $16dos walk up / 18+

Unknown Mortal Orchestra || Facebook || Watch
Unknown Mortal Orchestra first dropped into the world in late 2010 as a bandcamp account carrying a single called ‘Ffunny Ffrends’.

‘Ffunny Ffrends’ was everything you imagined it might be – alien beatnik pop music that echoed 60s psychedelia and krautrock minimalism with just a hint of gentle weirdness that suggested its roots might equally lie in the verdant indie of the equally distant New Zealand scene.

Ruban Nielson is a New Zealand native who had transplanted to Portland, Oregon with his band Mint Chicks. UMO was a project conceived as Ruban’s escape hatch to a new musical dimension where his vision of junkshop record collector pop could be realized in a sound that recalled Captain Beefheart, Sly Stone and RZA jamming on some kids TV theme too dark to ever be broadcast.

Out of the home studio, Ruban was joined by local Portland producer Jake Portrait on bass and teenage prodigy Julien Ehrlich on drums. They have been on the road all year, sleeping in ditches and running drunkenly from venues when needs be, curling ears and turning heads with their intoxicating sound all the way.

White Arrows || Listen || Watch
“Louche and strung-out track from the LA band” Hottest Download Sunday Times Culture
“An impressive collection of songs that hint at their potential” Music Week

Following the release of their debut ep earlier this summer Los Angeles’ five-piece White Arrows are set to make their British live debut and release their first single, ‘Get Gone’. It is a groove-soaked, synth’-laden slice of what’s to come, on the band’s RAC produced debut album, scheduled for release in 2012.

A fusion of heavyweight melodic hooks, hip hop drum samples and analogue synths – the White Arrows sound is a potent brew cooked up by singer Mickey Church, Steven Vernet (bass) Andrew Naeve (electronics), Mickey’s younger brother Henry Church (drums) and half-brother, John Paul Caballero (guitar).

Church the elder is no stranger to the odd herbal infusion, born blind Mickey Church spent his first years railing against his fate and through an extensive program of eye excercises and superhuman determination regained his vision at the age of eleven. This transformation led to a degree at NYU in Ritualistic Shamanism. Church’s obsession with the alternative drew him to the booming NYC club scene : the cultural and philosophical blend was the prime ingredient in the formation of White Arrows.

Church returned to his native LA and there together with the newly formed band, White Arrows have spent the intervening time perfecting their art. A heavy weight touring schedule around the States has meant the band have performed with Cults, White Denim, The Airborne Toxic Event, and Portugal the Man among others

Their British live debut was late September and saw the band more gig-fit than ever. It is bracketed by a mammoth Stateside touring schedule that sawshows with Those Darlins and Weezer during August and then on the return from the UK, a 16 date run with Naked and Famous throughout October.

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