The fourth full-length from BROODS, Space Island is an exploration of grief and all its many dimensions: its unpredictable nature and refusal to follow any linear path, its incredible capacity to bring great clarity and transformation. In keeping with the New Zealand-bred duo’s unfettered imagination—an element they’ve brought to multiple platinum- and gold-certified records so far—the album’s 10 tracks exist in a surprisingly radiant sonic realm, its aesthetic equally inspired by ’60s sci-fi B-movies and the balmy exotica of composers like Les Baxter. As a result, Space Island introduces a dazzling new intensity into BROODS’ atmospheric indie-pop while providing a powerful conduit for catharsis. 

The most high-concept output yet from BROODS—a ten-time New Zealand Music Award-winning act who’ve amassed over a billion streams to date, collaborated with Lorde and Tove Lo, toured with HAIM and Taylor Swift, and taken the stage at major festivals like Coachella and Lollapalooza—Space Island came to life during a period of serious upheaval for lead vocalist Georgia Nott. Having married at the age of 21, she went through a difficult divorce soon after the release of BROODS’ previous album Don’t Feed the Pop Monster (a 2019 effort that led to appearances on “Late Night with Seth Meyers” and “The Late Late Show with James Corden”). As Georgia turned to songwriting as a means of processing her grief, she and her brother/bandmate Caleb Nott discovered an unlikely but wholly fitting vessel for that emotional outpouring. “One thing about the experience of grief is that it makes you feel like you’re a bit out of orbit, or isolated in a very big feeling,” says Georgia. “The more we figured out the strange logic of Space Island, the more the music started to reflect what was happening in the lyrics.”