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Multi-Love

album by Unknown Mortal Orchestra

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 31, 2026
Entity authorityQ19954625 ↗
Source-derived summary

Multi-Love is the third studio album by the New Zealand band Unknown Mortal Orchestra. It was released on 26 May 2015. Frontman and primary contributor Ruban Nielson produced, mixed, and engineered the entirety of Multi-Love. The title is a reference to the polyamorous relationship which Ruban Nielson had with his wife and a younger woman for a year. The album explores themes of euphoria, sexual experimentation and emotional exhaustion.

The album won the 2015 APRA Silver Scroll for Best Alternative Album. Considered the band's global breakthrough, Multi-Love made it onto lists by The Guardian, NME and Consequence of Sound for the best albums of 2015. Singles "Multi-Love" and "Can't Keep Checking My Phone" were both A-listed at BBC's 6 Music. Alongside Tame Impala's Currents, it was sometimes labelled one of two major critically acclaimed works of psychedelic music in 2015. The album debuted at number 14 in New Zealand, number 44 in the United Kingdom, and at number 7 on the American Billboard Independent Charts.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Multi-Love” as album by Unknown Mortal Orchestra. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Multi-Love, album and Unknown.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2015—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2015. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Multi-Love, album and Unknown providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Multi-Love”, the useful work is to connect “album by Unknown Mortal Orchestra” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q19954625. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2015.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Multi-Love”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Multi-Love primary sources, Multi-Love archive and Multi-Love research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Multi-Love”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Multi-Love” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.