Hardly anyone knows that Unknown Mortal Orchestra is some guy called Ruban Nielson. At first the 'band' was just a song called Ffunny Ffrends, which somehow found it's way onto literally hundreds of music blogs in a few days after it was posted to a brand new bandcamp account. Over the months that followed, the Unknown Mortal Orchestra gradually invited willing listeners into a world where junk shop record collections came to life and recombined in freakish new combinations. Eventually, in keeping with UMO's enigmatic moniker, a self-titled 7" EP was released from behind a veil of secrecy by UK imprint The Sounds of Sweet Nothing in 2010, sounding like Captain Beefheart, Sly Stone and RZA jamming on a creep never released kid's show. For months Ruban was unable to bring himself to tell even those closest to him that he was making this music, and went about life as certain friends, family members and colleagues would start asking him if he'd ever heard about the Unknown Mortal Orchestra.
http://schedule.sxsw.com/events/event_MS13681