Cut Copy returns with Haiku From Zero, their first proper studio album in nearly four years and first with Astralwerks. The new record showcases a band in full command of their powers to move people both emotionally and physically. Written and recorded at studios around the world (Melbourne, Copenhagen, Washington, DC, New York, Atlanta), the 9-tracks present a united sonic front, due in no small part to the guiding ear of producer Ben Allen (Deerhunter, Animal Collective, Neon Indian). Songs like “Counting Down” and “Living Upside Down” offer glimpses of beauty in a state of disco-fueled flux.

And single “Standing in the Middle of the Field” announces a theme that percolates throughout Haiku From Zero – the need to cut through the noise, a desire to focus. Amid a backdrop of loping kalimbas, cowbells and bubbly synths, lead singer Dan Whitford’s plaintive voice offers some emotional advice in the lyrics, “You gotta give up the things you love to make it better.”

“So much of this album is about this mosaic of information, images that we’re surrounded by on a day-to-day basis,” says Whitford. “Sometimes it feels like overload, but there’s a weird random beauty in it. The idea of squeezing poetry from chaos was where the title of the album came from – the idea of finding something poetic in the overload.”