By Charley Ruddell
Throughout his time on this planet, the great jazz sorcerer Sun Ra left bestowed scraps of cosmic wisdom for anyone deft enough to listen. “As far as people on this planet are concerned, they know far less than they do what they know,” he emanates in the opening moments of electro-psych duo KUNZITE’s newest video for “Novas,” their first release via Wilder since 2018’s BIRDS DON’T FLY, as a pair of Trekkian-esque anthropoids gyrate through the gorgeous terrain of White’s homeland in the islands of Hawaii.
Photo by Priest Fontaine Batten
Formed after chance encounters on tour stretches during the early-aughts, Stroud (one half of electronic duo RATATAT) and White (formerly of psych outfit White Flight) formed KUNZITE through a shared interest of beat-heavy, acid-tinged psychedelia. “Novas” is the pinnacle of this brain trust. The bombastic, maximalist body of “Novas” immediately calls to mind the glitch-hop realm of Stroud’s former project, while the zipping synths and sun-drenched vocals bring the utopia of the West Coast to the forefront. With its freewheeling swagger and bumping grooves, “Novas” invokes a certain shaggy-haired assurance to those of us yet to be raptured by the dance floor enlightenment of the Western world.
As Stroud and White perch upon the rolling red canyons and glistening ocean stones with guitars slung and beards flowing, the cosmonauts trek through the lush jungles of the Pacific Southwest. Kaleidoscopic shots of waves and waterfalls make the earthly landscapes feel otherworldly. It showcases the duo’s eagerness to turn something so familiar into a feeling of bewilderment. “My music is about changing things,” Sun Ra concludes in his opening monologue, an affirmation KUNZITE has clearly plastered on its DJ decks.