The Melbourne neo-soul act has also dropped new single, ‘Make Friends’.

It’s been a big week for Hiatus Kaiyote. The Melbourne quartet has announced they are embarking on a five-date Australian tour this September. Not only are they back on the road, but Hiatus Kaiyote is releasing a new album, Love Heart Cheat Code. To coincide with this news, Naomi Saalfield (Nai Palm), Simon Marvin, Paul Bender and Perrin Moss have also shared the album’s second single, ‘Happy Friends’.

Having recently performed intimate shows at Melbourne’s The Evelyn Hotel and Hammer Hall, Hiatus Kaiyote’s September jaunt across the country will include stops in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide.

The band’s fourth studio album, Love Heart Cheat Code, is being released via BrainFeeder / Ninja Tune and is set for release on June 28. The record follows on from Hiatus Kaiyote’s most successful release, 2021s Mood Valiant. That album saw the band claim the 2022 AIR Award for Best Independent Jazz Album or EP.

Love Heart Cheat Code is produced by Mario Caldato Jr. (Beastie Boys) and several Melbourne musicians and features 11 tracks. In a statement about the album, frontwoman Palm discussed how the band’s new album is much simpler than previous records:

“I’m a maximalist. I complicate fucking everything. But the more you go through things in life, you become more relaxed and uninhibited. Sometimes you can still have depth and reach people and really stop dancing around the fact: What do you want to communicate to people? And 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.”

New single ‘Make Friends’ is the second taste of Love Heart Cheat Code after Hiatus Kaiyote’s released ‘Everything’s Beautiful’ in January. A soulful, jazz-infused wonder, ‘Make Friends’ is a cracking tune that once again proves this band don’t make bad music. The song is about Palm’s favourite people who make her life great and the appreciation she has for them.

“You don’t make friends, you recognise them,” she said in a statement. “I wanted to have representation for just the different examples of people that I love from the women in my life, to the men, to my non-binary friends.

“And 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. Just realizing that inclusivity is so often denied to some of the people that I love the most, my best besties.”

Love Heart Chea Code is set for release on June 28. Pre-sale tickets for Hiatus Kaiyote’s tour go on sale on Wednesday, April 3 at 8:30am local time via Niche Productions. General sale tickets go on sale Friday, April 5 at 8:30am via the band’s website.