IC-01 Hanoi
is quite different from anything else in the
Unknown Mortal Orchestra
catalog. While in Vietnam recording the 2018 album
Sex & Food
, group leader
Ruban Nielson
, his brother drummer
Kody Nielson
, and bassist
Jacob Portrait
took some time out from the sessions to lay down some electric jazz tracks. They were joined by Vietnamese musician
Minh Nguyen
and the Nielsons' dad,
Chris
, on fluegelhorn, saxophone, and keys. The result was seven songs that are heavily influenced by electric
Miles Davis
records like
On the Corner
, only flavored with Vietnamese sounds and spiced by
Ruban
's fuzzy guitar wanderings. The record is split between short expressionist pieces that meander peacefully, letting
Nguyen
's flute and percussion come to the fore, and free-flowing jazz-funk workouts that sound haunted and wired. The record is anchored by "Hanoi 6," a lengthy deep-groove ballad that features
's Djan moi (a kind of bamboo jaw harp) setting the spooky atmosphere and
Chris Nielson
unspooling a long, expressive solo. This last track is the most effective of the batch because it really takes flight and sounds fully realized. The moodily psychedelic "Hanoi 2," which showcases
's spiky, drowned-in-EFX electric guitar skills, is the next longest and most realized piece; the rest of the album sounds like sketches of a moment in time that are good to hear once, but don't stand up to repeated listens. Overall,
is interesting and shows that the band does have impressive range, but it's not quite an essential piece of the
UMO
puzzle. ~ Tim Sendra