Hiatus Kaiyote Announce New Album 'Love Heart Cheat Code'

Melbourne neo-soul band Hiatus Kaiyote have announced their fourth studio album, Love Heart Cheat Code, for release on Friday June 28th via BrainFeeder/Ninja Tune. The band have also shared a new single, as well a slew of world tour dates – including a five-date run in Australia for September 2024. Details of the album, the new song and the upcoming Australian tour can all be found below.

Prior to the album’s announcement, the band had released the single ‘Everything’s Beautiful’ back in January. Now, to coincide with the album rollout, Hiatus Kaiyote have shared a second track from the album entitled ‘Make Friends’.

In a press statement, lead vocalist and guitarist Nai Palm explained that the song was an ode to platonic love. “I wanted to have representation for the different examples of people that I love, from the women in my life to the men to my non-binary friends,” she said.

“It was very natural and fun to work on as a formula. When I sang the third verse, the ‘them/they’ verse, I actually had to stop. [I was] realising that inclusivity is so often denied to some of the people that I love the most.”

Hiatus Kaiyote – ‘Make Friends’

Love Heart Cheat Code follows on three years from Hiatus Kaiyote’s last album, 2021’s Mood Valiant. That album was the band’s most successful release to date, peaking at number 4 on the ARIA Albums Chart and being nominated for a Grammy, an ARIA and the Australian Music Prize. It also won the 2022 AIR Award for Best Independent Jazz Album or EP.

The band worked with Brazilian producer Mario Caldato Jr. on Love Heart Cheat Code, best known for his extensive work with the Beastie Boys. The album also features a song titled ‘BMO Is Beautiful’ in reference to the Adventure Time character of the same name, which features BMO’s voice actor Niki Yang on the track.

Of the album, Palm says that despite being a self-described “maximalist”, the key theme of the album is its simplicity. “The more you go through things in life, you become more relaxed and uninhibited,” she says.

“Sometimes you can still have depth and reach people and really stop dancing around the fact [by asking]: ‘What do you want to communicate to people?’ I feel like this album is a result of that clarity for us. We didn’t need to spell out complexity if the song didn’t call for it.”

To support the release of Love Heart Cheat Code, the band will tour Australia this coming September. It marks their first full-scale tour of Australia since 2022; the band have only performed one-off shows nationally since then, including a performance at the Sydney Opera House with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra last year for VIVID Live and a show at Melbourne’s Hamer Hall with the Dreamboat Orchestra last month.