Their album, titled Every Waking Hour, is a homage to soul giants like Marvin Gaye and Donny Hathaway yet embodies an intimate knowledge of Dilla-esque Hip Hop music that sparked the neo soul movement (even though that term seems exhausted). Proving that there’s more hailing from New Zealand than the ‘Flight of the Concords’, this album is an array of excellent production thick with hypnotic melodies and boom-bap inspired drums.Tracks like “Walk On” featuring Stacy Epps and “Gimme That Kinda” and “Again” are all diverse but maintaining a common goal: creating the absolute perfect post-millennium soul album. This record sounds like what would have happened if Soulquarians put out a full-length (how we can still dream). Stand out track “Buy Some Land, Put A House On It” starts off with heavy horns and creeps into a distorted genius of electronic sensibilities with the beauty of simple and effect songwriting. Strong melodies, strong hooks – and let the music dictate the rest.
The group’s brand of what they call ‘Future Soul’ (not sure if they coined the phrase but is befitting) is a refreshing re-interpretation of what the genre should look and sound like. During the ’70s when Motown was churning out classics from Marvin to Stevie and other places had Curtis Mayfield and more, seems to be a resurgence of that energy. It’s an exciting time for soul music simply proving that people that exclaim that there isn’t any good music out there just aren’t looking hard enough.
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