I discovered Hiatus on the 16th of April 2011. The night before, I attended Introducing’s tribute gig to DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing masterpiece. At the end of the show, a man (presumably Cyrus Shahrad) gave me a sampler CD that I’d throw at the bottom of my bag before going home. I found that CD the next day when I had forgotten about it, and by means of curiosity, inserted it into my laptop.

My jaw dropped at the first sound. Never had I thought I would actually listen to the whole CD (containing only two tracks), let alone pressing repeat! I should have known better just by seeing the artwork, which is a jewel of photography, some sort of lunar landscape.

When I heard that Hiatus was playing a gig at Cargo with Shura to launch their Fortune’s Fool single, I couldn’t miss it. And I am glad I didn’t. The audience was quite meagre, but the venue was pretty intimate and it permited a very personal performance. It was the first time I heard Shura too, and her voice just added to the enchantment of the tunes.

They played a few songs on top of their recently released track, including First and Third. At the end, I managed to compliment Hiatus and thank him for this show. I delightedly left with their new single in hands, covered with this ever so beautiful artwork by Spencer Murphy, for the greatest pleasure of my eyes and my ears.