''IC-01 Hanoi'' is the first instrumental album by New Zealand band

Unknown Mortal Orchestra Unknown Mortal Orchestra (also known as UMO) is a New Zealand psychedelic rock band from Auckland and now based in Portland, Oregon, Portland, Oregon. Fronted by multi-instrumentalist Ruban Nielson, assisted by his brother The Mint Chicks, Kod ...

, released on 26 October 2018 through

Jagjaguwar Jagjaguwar is an American independent record label based in Bloomington, Indiana. History In 1996, in Charlottesville, Virginia, University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public resear ...

. It is the group's second album of 2018 after '' Sex & Food'', released in April, and their first instrumental album. The album was recorded entirely in the city of

Hanoi Hanoi ( ; ; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Vietnam, second-most populous city of Vietnam. The name "Hanoi" translates to "inside the river" (Hanoi is bordered by the Red River (Asia), Red and Black River (Asia), Black Riv ...

, Vietnam, and originated from sessions for ''Sex & Food'', with frontman

Ruban Nielson Ruban Nielson (born 20 February 1980) is a New Zealand musician, singer and songwriter, and the frontman of the psychedelic rock band Unknown Mortal Orchestra. He has won two Aotearoa Music Awards and an APRA Silver Scroll, over the course of hi ...

's father, Chris Nielson, also contributing instrumentation to the record. The first single, the nearly 10-minute ambient and freeform "Hanoi 6", was released on 25 September 2018. The album was promoted by a series of shows across Europe and the UK, as well as Asia and several in Mexico. It was followed by '' IC-02 Bogotá'' in 2025.

Music

The album has been described as a "sonic distillation of the band's influences in Jazz,

Krautrock Krautrock (also called , German for ) is a broad genre of experimental rock that developed in Germany in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It originated among artists who blended elements of psychedelic rock, avant-garde composition, and electron ...

and the avant garde", as well as experimental jazz. It was influenced by the works of

Miles Davis Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th century music, 20th-century music. Davis ado ...

Critical reception

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, IC-01 Hanoi received an average score of 66, based on eight reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Reviewing the album for ''

Pitchfork A pitchfork or hay fork is an agricultural tool used to pitch loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. It has a long handle and usually two to five thin tines designed to efficiently move such materials. The term is also applie ...

'', Andy Beta felt that "Ruban Nielson throws off his habitually weighty themes and digs into a refreshingly raw, heady session of psychedelic rock", also saying that the album "presents a visceral, smoky, casual session that cooks together fairly tumultuous moods over the course of its concise runtime".

Track listing

Personnel

Musicians *

– guitar * Kody Nielson – drums * Jake Portrait – bass * Chris Nielson – saxophone, flugelhorn, keyboards * Minh Nguyen – đàn môi, sáo mèo, trống thanh Technical * Jake Portrait – engineer * Kody Nielson – engineer * Vu Pham – engineer, recording * Ruban Nielson – mixing * JJ at Golden Mastering – mastering

References

{{Authority control 2018 albums 2010s instrumental albums Jagjaguwar albums Unknown Mortal Orchestra albums