Keep It Handsome

Hiatus Kaiyote “Love Heart Cheat Code”

Hiatus Kaiyote approach R&B with a lot of curiosity, often seeming as though their goal is to break up the standard components of the music and put the parts back together in unusual ways just to see if they can arrive at a new sort of feeling. That description would lead you to imagine a very studied and stiff band, but the songs all have a heart-on-sleeve warmth and the performances feel guided by intuition. They’re also fairly silly? Nai Palm’s vocal performance on “Love Heart Cheat Code” is earnestly sensual, but her lyrics are very playful and often seem like references to little romantic in-jokes. It’s a song about the value of leading with love in life broadly, but you really hear undiluted affection come through in her voice on those goofier lines, like “in there like swimwear” or the repeated refrain of “keep it handsome.”

Buy it from Amazon.