Australian neo-soul unit Hiatus Kaiyote entranced audience members at the Brooklyn Paramount on August 15 during their latest tour throughout North America.
Hiatus Kaiyote has made an art of eclecticism. With just shy of a decade and a half of activity under their belts, the Melbourne natives have carved out a niche in the music industry that is entirely their own– a jazz and funk fusion that exists largely outside of genre and has drawn acclaim from critics, listeners, and fellow musicians alike.
If you’re unfamiliar with works of their own like their Grammy-award nominated 2022 album Mood Valiant or their similarly nominated performances of “Nakamarra” featuring Q-Tip and “Breathing Underwater.” You may have heard their work sampled by some of the industry’s biggest names, the rather impressive list includes the likes of Anderson .Paak, Kendrick Lamar, and Beyoncé.
A truly rounded unit in both sonic mechanics and live musicality, Hiatus Kaiyote continues to stun audiences across the world with their unrivaled performances. Their latest tour is currently bringing the group across North America, including an evening at New York City’s own Brooklyn Paramount on August 15.
Well before the evening had properly begun, a stunning tone was being set on the floor of the Paramount. An eclectic group of soul, jazz, and funk lovers, music snobs (said with the utmost affection), and some of the most stunningly dressed folks in Brooklyn had wandered, waltzed, and flounced their way into the building and quickly began to fill out the ever-growing crowd. By 7:30, the venue’s standing room had easily expanded 20 people deep on all sides, the chatter from the floor floating above the sun-warmed tones of Joe Bataan’s “Ordinary Guy” among other honey-hued tracks.
Opening the evening was a familiar face to Hiatus fans: Silentjay, a producer, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist who would return to the stage later that evening as one of three voices providing Hiatus Kaiyote’s backing vocals.
Initially taking to the stage to set up for his live mixing, a fan in the crowd called out asking if he was the opener, to which Jay simply smiled and shrugged, beginning his set only a few moments after. Immediately mesmerizing and energizing the crowd, Jay’s deft mixing was accompanied by wonderfully surprising performances on saxophone and bits of stunning vocals performed effortlessly as he danced along to his beats.
Amongst the tracks he mixed and remixed was a piece from Tres Leches, a side project of Hiatus Kaiyote’s that reimagined the group’s discography in a style that can only be described as the soundtrack to a swanky beach hotel’s elevator. The album had dropped only a day prior to the group’s performance in Brooklyn – something that deeply entertained Jay as an audience member had been the one to inform him of the exact timeline.
Though entirely instrumental in its reimagining, the most devoted of audience members sang along to the Tres Leches tunes without hesitation. It was a moment of pure appreciation and joy exchanged between artist and listener- not one person in the venue could fight their smile. Wrapping his set, Jay prompted the audience, “Make sure you guys make friends with each other… because I already feel like a friend!”
Bowing out before his return with the full unit, jazzy interlude tunes played over the speakers as friends chatted amongst themselves and venue staff vigilantly offered cups of water to the crowd.
Taking the stage among a stunning set of stripes, angles, and swooped lines, Hiatus Kaiyote began with a brilliantly thrumming rendition of “Love Heart Cheat Code.” It’s there in the first moments where the group’s identity is made clear – it is not simply one aspect that sets them apart from the rest of the industry but their whole.
Utilizing the full extent of the Paramount’s extensive lighting that expands beyond the stage into the very venue itself in vibrant hues, dressing the set with black-and-white striped spikes that reflected the neon glow of their additional neon structures, Hiatus Kaiyote certainly does not deny the opportunity for a proper production.
As Hiatus played through “Sphynx Gate” and “Get Sun,” their musicality truly glowed. Their sound is certainly one of decisiveness- there are those who decide it’s not their cup of tea, and then there are those who simply get it. I had found it difficult to describe their sound to a colleague earlier that evening, and their performance embodied everything I couldn’t put into words. Ascribing a genre to Hiatus would be boxing them in, limiting their full scale of sound. For those who get their discography, it’s often not because of a genre or label but simply because they create unabashedly.
The setlist was almost seamless, songs becoming sets melded into each other as the band jammed out and weaved the instrumental of one track with the next in a way that felt almost theatrical. Rarely was there a moment of true quiet while Hiatus was on stage.
The audience, however, refused to be outshone. Singing along with a fervor, not a single figure on the positively packed floor stood still. At minimum a polite shuffle, the crowd remained simultaneously full of energy and incredibly respectful of one another. Just because the venue was full didn’t mean they weren’t going to make way for folks trying to get by or smile in apology when accidentally bumping shoulders.
A cursory glance back through the crowd half-way through the set quickly became my favorite moment of the evening: one individual leaned against the barricade was flicking a fan to the time of everyone else’s waves and about seven or eight people deep a lone hand was waving a slowly burning stick of incense above their head. It seems that the Hiatus Kaiyote fanbase is not only one of stellar musical and wardrobe taste, but of a refined smell as well, something that lead singer Nai Palm pointed out playfully between sets.
Having given Brooklyn absolutely all they had and getting everything the audience had in return, Hiatus Kaiyote’s return to New York was a success tinged in neon and draped in stripes.
Setlist: Love Heart Cheat Code / Sphynx Gate / Get Sun / Jekyll / Rose Water / Telescope / Make Friends / Longcat / Red Room / And We Go Gentle / By Fire / Sip Into Something Soft / All the Words We Don’t Say / Only Time All the Time / Dimitri / Shaolin Monk Motherfunk / Ocelot / Cinnamon Temple / Sparkle Tape Break Up / Building a Ladder
Silentjay | August 15, 2025 | Brooklyn Paramount
Hiatus Kaiyote | August 15, 2025 | Brooklyn Paramount
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