In their first record since 2015, Hiatus Kaiyote have achieved final form with their unique brand of steampunk neo-funk, delivering an explosive, buoyant, polished juggernaut of a record with ‘Mood Valiant’.

The band initially began honing the material for ‘Mood Valiant’ while touring 2015’s ‘Choose Your Weapon’. By 2018 the record was well underway, only to be hit with a bombshell. Lead singer and guitarist Nai Palm was diagnosed with breast cancer, the same disease that claimed her mother’s life when she was 11, setting off a chain of events that drastically altered her life and creative practice. Though most of the material was written before Nai’s diagnosis (and successful treatment), there is an indelible mark on a record forged in fire. The highs are higher, filling the record to overflowing with ecstatic, roiling rhythms, intricate arrangements, joyous vocals, and sensuous lyrics. The six year process refined the music, distilling the band’s laid back, free-flowing jam style to cultivate intentional, finely crafted songs.

‘Mood Valiant’ is painted in saturated, vibrant colours and animated with fervent energy. Lead single ‘Get Sun’ took the band to Brazil to work with legendary arranger Arthur Verocai, adding lush, sunlit strings and exuberant horns. ‘Chivalry is Not Dead’ is playful and sensuous, looking to nature at mating leopard slugs and seahorses to explore ideas of sexual experience outside the norm. ‘Red Room’ moves inward, mesmerized by the perfect hour of sunset lighting in a creative space. Dense, enigmatic lyrics are counterbalanced by simple mantras: “All I wanna do”; “All the words we don’t say”; “Can I get a light?”; “I don’t wanna be anywhere but here”. As always, Nai’s vocals are a display of acrobatic melodies and shapeshifting tone control, supported on waves of orchestral harmonies. Every crack and imperfection is not only kept but foregrounded in the production, showcasing Nai’s voice as raw, fragile, and almost primal. Nai captures the album’s spirit perfectly on the expansive, Donny Hathaway-esque ballad ’Stone or Lavender’ with the lyric: “I don’t want to be small, I want to be full of life.”