paul bender

Hiatus Kaiyote are, from left to right, drummer Perrin Moss, bassist Paul Bender, keyboardist Simon Mavin, and singer-guitarist Nai Palm.

Photo by Claudia Sangiorgi Dalimore

The Melbourne-based soul quartet used layered bass tracks, a pointy headstock guitar, old solid-state amps, samples, countermelodies, strange syncopations, and a Brazilian composer to create the complex and colorful Mood Valiant.

According to Paul Bender—bassist for the trippy yet eminently soulful Melbourne-based quartet, Hiatus Kaiyote—the band's live sets often meld into one continuous song. "I never really get a break in the set because we always play all our tunes together for some reason," he says. "I basically never stop playing. I don't have a moment where I am not doing something at any point in the set."

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