Mood Valiant continues a fine run of form for Brainfeeder’s in-house soul unit, their tunes shining with irrepressible unity and a palpable cheer which feels all the more acute after the Melbourne unit pushed through several challenging years.
Item added to your cart.
Mood Valiant continues a fine run of form for Brainfeeder’s in-house soul unit, their tunes shining with irrepressible unity and a palpable cheer which feels all the more acute after the Melbourne unit pushed through several challenging years.
Glow in the dark vinyl
Read MoreBF112X
Red in black inkspot vinyl
Read MoreBF112N
320 kbps, LAME-encoded
Since 2015’s sophomore album “Choose Your Weapon”, Hiatus Kaiyote have been through hell and back. Their track record of fine releases and festival presence ground to a sudden halt. Given the Melbourne-born four piece’s predilection for spinning sultry golden-hour moods out of soul, R&B, jazz-funk and beatwise noodling, it wouldn’t have been a surprise if “Mood Valiant” never got made at all.
2018 saw the band reach a new level of cultural cachet, as unmistakable lead singer Nai Palm (Naomi Saalfield) released a solo LP and featured as a guest vocalist on Drake’s globe-dominating “Scorpion”. Then came the fall.
Saalfield, who lost her mother to breast cancer as a child, was diagnosed with the same condition. She went into remission the next year, but not before her pet and Hiatus Kaiyote’s unofficial touring fifth member, a parrot named after 20th century jazz great Charlie Parker, died. Hopes for a restful start to the 2020s were dashed as Australia lost its early handle on pandemic management, and went into a series of convulsing lockdowns it has not yet fully come out of.
So — how have the band come up with the best album of their career to date; released, presumably with no small irony, at the height of the Northern Hemisphere’s summer season? “Mood Valiant”’s clue is in the name: by drawing upon her mother’s decision to switch between a black and white career depending on her mood that day, Saalfield inverts the band’s streak of rough luck. The resultant music is a tribute to resistance in the face of crushing adversity.
Enlisting Brazil’s bossa nova cult hero Arthur Verocai to apply some classy orchestration and positive affirmations on lead single ‘Sun’ is a good way to go about signalling your creative and spiritual rebirth. Signing on with Brainfeeder isn’t a bad move, either — not least that Flying Lotus went through his own near-death experience only a few years ago. But the storm clouds are kept at bay. For most of the dozen songs here, Hiatus Kaiyote paints in brushstrokes of Rhodes piano, warm instrumentation, and steady percussion which has the capacity to explode at a moment’s notice.
This comes to pass: “Mood Valiant” pootles along with urbane fluidity until we get to the mid-album showstopper, ‘All The Words We Don’t Say’. The song’s immediacy, courtesy of a knotty bassline and nonlinear beats, mark this as an outlier, but it explodes forth with Nai Palm singing-scatting about tilling the land and being absorbed by someone else’s eyes. Put that side-by-side with her recording Curtis Mayfield covers from a hospital bed, and it’s not hard to see where the joy stems from.
“Mood Valiant” shines with irrepressible unity and a palpable cheer which feels all the more acute after the turmoil to even get to this point. As Saalfield told Pitchfork earlier this year, “after [the scare] I decided that I needed to prove to life that the offering I have is genuine. My only wish is to live and offer my experience of time and beauty.” Mission accomplished.
Since 2015’s sophomore album “Choose Your Weapon”, Hiatus Kaiyote have been through hell and back. Their track record of fine releases and festival presence ground to a sudden halt. Given the Melbourne-born four piece’s predilection for spinning sultry golden-hour moods out of soul, R&B, jazz-funk and beatwise noodling, it wouldn’t have been a surprise if “Mood Valiant” never got made at all.
2018 saw the band reach a new level of cultural cachet, as unmistakable lead singer Nai Palm (Naomi Saalfield) released a solo LP and featured as a guest vocalist on Drake’s globe-dominating “Scorpion”. Then came the fall.
Saalfield, who lost her mother to breast cancer as a child, was diagnosed with the same condition. She went into remission the next year, but not before her pet and Hiatus Kaiyote’s unofficial touring fifth member, a parrot named after 20th century jazz great Charlie Parker, died. Hopes for a restful start to the 2020s were dashed as Australia lost its early handle on pandemic management, and went into a series of convulsing lockdowns it has not yet fully come out of.
So — how have the band come up with the best album of their career to date; released, presumably with no small irony, at the height of the Northern Hemisphere’s summer season? “Mood Valiant”’s clue is in the name: by drawing upon her mother’s decision to switch between a black and white career depending on her mood that day, Saalfield inverts the band’s streak of rough luck. The resultant music is a tribute to resistance in the face of crushing adversity.
Enlisting Brazil’s bossa nova cult hero Arthur Verocai to apply some classy orchestration and positive affirmations on lead single ‘Sun’ is a good way to go about signalling your creative and spiritual rebirth. Signing on with Brainfeeder isn’t a bad move, either — not least that Flying Lotus went through his own near-death experience only a few years ago. But the storm clouds are kept at bay. For most of the dozen songs here, Hiatus Kaiyote paints in brushstrokes of Rhodes piano, warm instrumentation, and steady percussion which has the capacity to explode at a moment’s notice.
This comes to pass: “Mood Valiant” pootles along with urbane fluidity until we get to the mid-album showstopper, ‘All The Words We Don’t Say’. The song’s immediacy, courtesy of a knotty bassline and nonlinear beats, mark this as an outlier, but it explodes forth with Nai Palm singing-scatting about tilling the land and being absorbed by someone else’s eyes. Put that side-by-side with her recording Curtis Mayfield covers from a hospital bed, and it’s not hard to see where the joy stems from.
“Mood Valiant” shines with irrepressible unity and a palpable cheer which feels all the more acute after the turmoil to even get to this point. As Saalfield told Pitchfork earlier this year, “after [the scare] I decided that I needed to prove to life that the offering I have is genuine. My only wish is to live and offer my experience of time and beauty.” Mission accomplished.
Made especially for you, Brainfeeder have created an exclusive edition
Signed print
After a decade of growth, Koreless hits home with a stunning debut LP full of arpeggiated restlessness and soundscape vistas which seem to stretch over the horizon. A work of true beauty.
Standouts from Britain’s resurgent post-punk scene, the young quintet took a series of mathematically engineered sharp left-turns toward a fearsome squall on their Warp debut.
Nocturnal free-associating, icicle beats and Blunt-ed shadowiness make for a captivating arrival statement from Hackney’s newest auteur.
Encouraged by a visionary contemporary producer and patient ensemble, one of the most celebrated musicians on this or any other earth turns in a transcendental performance of air and fire. An instant jazz classic.
Envisioned during the most disquieting moments of the pandemic, Icons sees dextrous percussionist Eli Keszler evoke the mood of watching raindrops slide down the window while gazing out at a sparse city that might never be coming back as before.
A victory lap thrown down by a singular producer, for his first album in eight years Mike Paradinas returns with signature emotive melodies from soft synths, rapid-fire drum programming and futuristic circuit-bending.
AD 93’s increasing reputation as a home for artists releasing far-out full-lengths is burnished by Maxwell Sterling’s alternately abstract and stately compositions on the rich Turn of Phrase.
Quivering In Time is a euphoric love letter to dance music past and present, from a DJ-producer who feels like she’s been present throughout.
Copenhagen duo Smerz’ artistic gestation over the past few years has resulted in a hybridised style of R&B harmonies, full-throttle club beats and ornate orchestral flourish — aka one of the most original albums we heard in 2021.