Rufus Du Sol - Bloom (2LP) - Pink/White Vinyl

In January 2016, Rüfüs released Bloom and leveled up from promising festival draw to a group with a real claim on the mainstage. Known as Rüfüs Du Sol outside Australia, the Sydney trio of Tyrone Lindqvist, Jon George, and James Hunt refined the chill, coastal shimmer of Atlas into something deeper and more hypnotic. Bloom didn’t just hit number one on the ARIA Albums Chart; it sounded like a band finding the exact temperature where late‑night club pulse meets sunrise tenderness.

The record’s arc is deliberate. It opens with Brighter, a rising curtain of synths and stacked harmonies that sets the emotional stakes. Then the singles start slipping in, each with its own pull. You Were Right is the immediate one, a crisp, humming groove that hides heartache in the pocket. The song took home an ARIA Award for Best Dance Release, which makes sense when you feel how neatly it balances hook and atmosphere. Say a Prayer for Me nudges toward classic house with a soft glow around the edges, while Like an Animal toys with a funkier bass line and a hook you catch yourself humming hours later. These tracks traveled far beyond Australia not because they chased trends, but because they sound effortless and never lose their human center.

Bloom is also the album where Rüfüs leaned into patience. The back half favors longer builds, fewer words, and bolder payoffs. Until the Sun Needs to Rise glides across a warm, nocturnal groove, and by the time Innerbloom arrives, nine and a half minutes feel too short. Innerbloom has become a fan rite of passage for a reason. Tyrone’s vocal is near-whisper intimate, the synths swell and recede like tides, and the drums resist the easy drop. When the low end finally kicks, it feels earned. The album version remains the definitive take, though Sasha’s 2016 remix helped carry the song into cavernous clubs worldwide. Either way, it’s the kind of track that can hold a room still.

Part of the charm here is how organic the trio’s interplay feels. Lindqvist’s voice is clean and unhurried, sometimes feather‑light, sometimes weathered just enough to suggest a long night. George’s keys do most of the storytelling, painting bright synth motifs and then shading them with pads that suggest distance. Hunt’s drumming locks it all together with a live, roomy feel that avoids the quantized stiffness common in festival-ready dance music. They produced Bloom themselves, and you can hear the care in the sound design, from the way delays tail off into quiet to the gentle saturation on those percussive claps.

If you came to Bloom late, through Solace or the Grammy‑nominated Surrender, it’s worth tracing the lineage back. You can hear the seeds of their later, darker palette forming here. The tempos rarely hurry, the choruses coast rather than shout, and the emotional tone is earned through repetition and texture rather than melodrama. That approach made Bloom travel well. It felt at home under headphones, but it also made sense in big tents and open‑air amphitheaters where a slow build can turn a crowd into a single, swaying shape.

Vinyl is where Bloom really blooms. The low end breathes, the synths have air, and Innerbloom’s long tail feels infinite. If you’re crate-digging at a Melbourne record store or browsing vinyl records Australia late at night, the Bloom vinyl reissue is the copy you snatch before someone else reaches over your shoulder. Rüfüs Du Sol albums on vinyl tend to disappear, and this one never lingers in the bins for long. If you prefer not to leave it to fate, you can always buy Rüfüs Du Sol records online; just make sure you’re getting a clean pressing, because that final run of Innerbloom begs for a quiet floor.

Eight years on, Bloom still works because it trusts mood. It trusts that a simple phrase, repeated with conviction, can carry more weight than a clever turn. It trusts a kick drum to speak when words get in the way. There are bigger records in the trio’s catalog now, and darker ones, but none that capture this exact meeting of youthful light and late‑night cool. Put it on from the start, let the room fill, and when the closer finally arrives, do what the title suggests. Let it linger. And if you’re the type who measures a record by how it feels on wax, consider this a nudge toward the Rüfüs Du Sol vinyl shelf. Bloom is the sound of a band learning how to be large without getting loud, and it belongs there.