Strange Old State Of Mind

Unknown Mortal Orchestra “So Good At Being In Trouble”

Unknown Mortal Orchestra lean hard on room sound in their recordings – mic’ing the space to capture the ambient noise in the studio as they play, a classic trick for getting a live, spontaneous feeling on tape. I love this method, and it’s perfectly suited to their music, which always has a lot of silence between the beats and the notes. “So Good At Being In Trouble,” the closest they’ve come to writing a straight-up old school R&B song, is at least 40% negative space, a groove that leaves you hanging on for every syllable, bass note, and snare hit. There’s a wonderful sense of implied space here, not just in the music, but from the singer and his subject. You can hear it in his voice, and then in the mix – he’s got some distance, he’s moved on.

Buy it from Amazon.