Love Heart Cheat Code
Hiatus Kaiyote’s fourth album finds the Melbourne quartet in a playful mood. “BMO Is Beautiful” is a 41-second appreciation of the *Adventure Time* character BMO, featuring its voice actor Niki Yang on vocals. “Longcat” is a woozy tribute to “the longest cat in the world.” It’s fitting, then, that the band’s trademark jazz/R&B/future soul excursions are unshackled from traditional song structure in favor of a looser, more improvised form that emerged from late-night jam sessions, steering the album from cacophonous freak-outs like closer “White Rabbit” to the celestial opener “Dreamboat” and elastic jazz of “Make Friends.” Vocalist Nai Palm draws her lyrical inspiration from a diverse well. The Brazilian and sambalike rhythms of “Telescope” lay the foundation for a journey into space, the song inspired by photographs from the Hubble telescope on each band member’s birthday. “Cinnamon Temple,” a schizophrenic, head-bending mélange of noise, funk, and jazz that’s been in the band’s live set since 2015, takes its title from the mud-brick mosques in Mali, which look like they have cinnamon stuck in them, while “Make Friends” riffs on deep platonic love, with its one verse repeated three times, each from a different gender perspective. Acclaimed Brazilian producer Mario Caldato Jr. (Beastie Boys, Björk, Beck) proves himself a willing accomplice, harnessing the band’s devil-may-care, genre-bending approach to arrive at a record that is equal parts engrossing, befuddling, and intoxicating, but never, ever dull.
A gorgeous microcosm of sound, Hiatus Kaiyote's new album Love Heart Cheat Code is a perfect accompaniment for hazy summer days and nights.
Your daily dose of the best music, film and comedy news, reviews, streams, concert listings, interviews and other exclusives on Exclaim!
Filled with broad references to altered perception, Hiatus Kaiyote’s ‘Love Heart Cheat Code’ registers as Psychedelia for Dummies.
Hiatus Kaiyote - Love Heart Cheat Code review: All work and no play makes muzak a dull joy