IC-01 Hanoi is an instrumental album by New Zealand band Unknown Mortal Orchestra, released on 26 October 2018 through Jagjaguwar.[3] It is the group's second album of 2018 after Sex & Food, released in April, and their first instrumental album.[3] The album was recorded entirely in the city of Hanoi, Vietnam, and originated from sessions for Sex & Food,[4][3] with frontman Ruban Nielson's father, Chris Nielson, also contributing instrumentation to the record.[3]
The first single, the nearly 10-minute ambient and freeform "Hanoi 6", was released on 25 September 2018.[1] The album was promoted by a series of shows across Europe and the UK,[5] as well as Asia and several in Mexico.[6]
Music
The album has been described as a "sonic distillation of the band's influences in Jazz, Krautrock and the avant garde",[1] as well as experimental jazz.[1] It was influenced by the works of Miles Davis.[1]
At Metacritic, 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".[7] Reviewing the album for Pitchfork, 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".[2]
