Again self-produced, this sophomore album honors soul music's history while reveling in its experimentation and globalization of sound. Today, Hiatus Kaiyote present Choose Your Weapon – imagining the future past, and juxtaposing the acoustic and electronic, over 18 tracks and a 70-minute musical adventure. "Just to be propelled into that kind of platform and welcomed into that lineage is validation in itself," Nai muses. They subsequently became the first Australian act to receive a Grammy nomination in an R&B category ("Best R&B Performance"). Hiatus Kaiyote repackaged Tawk Tomahawk with a new version of Nakamarra featuring a verse by Q-Tip, the legendary member of A Tribe Called Quest.
Salaam Remi, the esteemed producer/songwriter who's guided the careers of Amy Winehouse, Nas and The Fugees, determined that Hiatus Kaiyote be the flagship signing to his Sony imprint Flying Buddha. Even Prince tweeted about Hiatus Kaiyote. The Roots' Questlove proclaimed their music "undeniable". Taylor also shared their music with BBC tastemaker DJ Gilles Peterson (they'd later win "Best Breakthrough Act" at his Worldwide Awards) and Anthony Valadez at California's KCRW. Simon recalls, "We got off stage and he was just like, What the hell was that?" The Brooklyn jazz-hopper championed Hiatus Kaiyote in an interview by the blog From Paris, which later profiled the band. Meanwhile, they started to attract influential industry fans starting with Taylor McFerrin, whom they supported at Melbourne's historic Esplanade Hotel ("The Espy"). Hiatus Kaiyote issued their acclaimed debut Tawk Tomahawk, of authentic homemade grooves, via Bandcamp – and shot a mesmerising bushland video for ‘Nakamarra’. Usually the best stuff comes out when you're just kinda winging it." Indeed, Hiatus Kaiyote isn't merely a soul/funk/jazz collective – it's a boldly unconventional paradigm, with Nai a singer/songwriter, and Bender, Simon and Pez all instinctive musicians and bedroom producers. "I still bring in songs," she says, "but we can come up with shit from scratch together – and that's way more rewarding. Hiatus Kaiyote jammed on their now Grammy-nominated song ‘ Nakamarra’ – which Nai had just penned about a friend devoting herself to working outback with Indigenous Australians. "Once we were all in the same room playing, it was just like, This is what it's supposed to be like!," Nai enthuses. It needed emotional connection to the music – but with creativity." She retreated into her beloved desert… Hiatus Kaiyote eventually crystallized after the quiet Pez joined, along with his curious roomie Simon. Says Nai, "I was ready to give up on the whole band idea, because the musicians were amazing – like, really gifted musicians – but it needed more than that. Bender, who'd made it his "mission" to seek out complementary players, found that challenging. In fact, the fantastically named Hiatus Kaiyote came together over time, its members encountering one another fatefully in various bands, cafés, and share houses. Straight away I was like, Oh, man, I gotta do a band with this girl." He business-carded her post-gig but Nai, having no formal musical background, was initially unsure about collaborating, worried her songs were "a bit weird". I'd never really heard that combination of elements before. She just started playing and singing and I was like, Whoa, what is this? This is crazy! I was instantly blown away by the voice and the complexity of the tunes. It was like this child's pink shit little nylon guitar. "She started the set explaining that her guitar was locked in someone's house and she couldn't get it, so she had to borrow this one. "I didn't know what she was gonna do because she was there with this really whack pink guitar," Bender remembers drolly. Bender, as everybody calls him, was hanging out at Gertrude's Brown Couch in Melbourne's groovy inner-suburb of Fitzroy when the striking Nai performed solo.
Hiatus Kaiyote's story begins with a girl toting a novelty guitar. In a short time, this quartet has embarked on an odyssey that began in bohemian Melbourne and has taken them to the Grammy Awards and beyond.
The members of Australian future soul band Hiatus Kaiyote have unveiled Choose Your Weapon (Flying Buddha/Sony Music Masterworks), their most opulent, expansive and ambitious project yet.
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