Hiatus Kaiyote
★★★★ Mood Valiant BRAINFEEDER. CD/DL/LP
Melbourne future soulsters’ unpredictable shape-shifting hits new heights.
HIATUS KAIYOTE’S third LP had a tricky genesis – work ceased abruptly in 2018 as singer Nai Palm underwent a life-saving cancer surgery. Her subsequent rude health spools through the squiggling synths and lyrical obfuscations of Chivalry Is Not Dead, the sweeping pianos and dappled jazz bass of Get Sun (with horns and strings from Brazilian arranger Arthur Verocai), songs that underline their talent for conjuring mesmerising grooves where funk, soul, disco and prog combine. Palm is the star, though, her byzantine harmonies the crucial glue as pitches shift and time signatures skip, before they strip their craft right back on woozy standouts Red Room and Stone Or Lavender. Vibrant
and uninhibited, dotted with rulebending twists, Mood Valiant is the sound of summer.