Flourishes of rippling piano, harp, guitars, woodwind and the high, dynamic voice of Nai Palm open this sunny, fluidly effervescent new LP by the brilliant Australian experimental jazz/funk prog, soul and R&B band stretching their unique sound and musicianship. As with 2021’s marvellous Mood Valiant, It’s complex yet sensual, fast and yet relaxing material from the curtain raising Dreamboat into the animal sounds and wooshing space wonder of Telescope, which playfully references The Temptations’s My Girl, then the jazzy movement of Make Friends in which Palm’s vocals nimble up and down the scale as much as Paul Bender’s soft, smooth bass. BMO is Beautiful has a swampy funk as prelude to the dynamically playful and unusual time signatures of fabulous lead single Everything Is Beautiful. Other highlights include the sensual How To Meet Yourself, the woozy title rack (with the poetic killer line “Not fragile like a flower / Fragile like a bomb”), and frenetically odd rock number Cinnamon Temple. There’s echoes of some Prince at times wiht the elevated rich vocal harmonies, but also a striking originality from a band that continue push their own envelope of sound, rhythm and style with such effortless, artful freedom, so deliciously cool it hurts. Out on Brainfeeder Records / Ninja Tune.
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