Album Review: Hiatus Kaiyote - Choose Your Weapon

Choose Your Weapon is a dreamboat of an album fuelled by sonic satisfaction.

The record is comprised of 12 songs and six little interludes that bridge them together, creative and cohesive, satisfying your need for niche consistency combined with the intrepid unpredictability of Hiatus Kaiyote. There’s a plethora of funk, jazz, swing, lounge and soul at play here, all wrapped around Nai Palm’s delightful honey-soaked croon. The record has a continuous flow, as the music within is drool-inducing and will leave you glassy eyed, three or four tracks often seeming to have inexplicably melted into each other – and this writer has not listened to the disc under the influence of heavy psychedelic drugs!

Hiatus Kaiyote continue to innovate on two fronts. On one hand there’s feel and timing, such as in the choppy breakdown of Shaolin Monk Motherfunk or the stop-start verse of By Fire. The album also features more electronic experimentation than in their previous material, for instance on the aptly named Atari, where trickling 8-bit sounds envelop the mix. The musicianship across the record is also top notch with the drumming of Perrin Moss really shining through, along with Simon Mavin’s efforts from behind the keys. Swamp Thing proves to be the standout of the record, as a fuzzed-out bass line is littered with erratic polyrhythms from the piano. It’s rather psychedelic and, it seems, Hiatus Kaiyote can do no wrong.