Traffik Island - Sweat Kollecta's Peanut Butter Traffik Jam (LP) - 45RPM Transparent Jammy Red Vinyl

If you’ve ever dug through the Flightless section in a Melbourne record store and clocked that cheeky peanut butter label peeking out of a sleeve, chances are you’ve brushed past Traffik Island’s Sweat Kollecta’s Peanut Butter Traffik Jam. The project is the brainchild of Zak Olsen, a familiar name around here from The Frowning Clouds, Hierophants and ORB, and this one lands as a neat pivot from the jangly psych of his debut to something more like a homemade beat tape with a crate-digger’s heart. It arrived in 2020 on Flightless and quickly became the kind of record mates recommend to mates when someone asks for a left‑of‑centre local gem.

What makes it stick is the way Olsen leans into the feel of sampled music without leaning on samples. The drums have that dusty, head‑nod thud you associate with old library LPs, while organs, flutes and vibraphone wander through like cues from a 70s detective show. You can hear the room in it. The recordings have that soft fuzz on the edges, which suits the concept. Rather than traditional songs, you get a stream of short vignettes that snap into place like loops. One idea rolls into the next, and before you know it you’re three tracks in, picturing a montage of sun‑streaked Melbourne streets and milk bar signage flashing by.

Olsen handles the bulk of the playing and production himself, and that single‑minded approach gives the album a clear palette. Fat, unhurried basslines, congas tucked under the kit, little guitar stabs, pocket keys and the occasional woodwind flourish. Nothing is showy. Everything serves the groove. There’s playfulness too. A tune will set up a swaggering rhythm then slip sideways into a creepy little chord change, as if the scene in your head just moved from bright afternoon to a dim back room. It’s cinema for crate rats.

The sequencing makes a real difference on wax. Side A is bright and spry, full of sunlit funk and cheeky melodic hooks, perfect for flipping on while you’re making a cuppa. Side B leans moodier and slower, with minor-key cues that feel like midnight tram rides. It isn’t a record chasing big choruses or singalongs. It’s more about texture, the way a snare rattle sits against a warm Rhodes, or how a flute line nudges your ear just as the bass ducks away. That restraint gives it surprising replay value. You’ll find new little details each time the needle drops.

There’s also something very local about it, even as it nods to broader beat culture. If you’ve grown up fossicking through op‑shops and market stalls for weird library sleeves, this will feel like home. Fans of DJ Shadow’s mood pieces, Madlib’s loungey detours or those Italian soundtrack reissues will feel the pull, but Olsen’s touch is distinctly his. He dials back the bombast and lets the tunes breathe. I caught myself thinking about the day I first heard it in a Brunswick bar, the bartender leaning over the counter to show me the sleeve like a secret handshake. That’s the kind of word of mouth it inspires.

On vinyl it comes alive. The low end sits warm and woolly, drums pure and present, the high end never harsh. If you’re hunting Traffik Island vinyl, this is the one that tends to convert the curious into collectors. Sweat Kollecta’s Peanut Butter Traffik Jam vinyl crops up on shelves across vinyl records Australia haunts, though it pays to keep an eye on Flightless or your favourite Melbourne record store if you want a clean copy. And if you’re not local, it’s easy enough to buy Traffik Island records online. Traffik Island albums on vinyl don’t hang around for long, and there’s a reason this one keeps getting mentioned in back‑room chats.

If Nature Strip was Olsen’s jangly calling card, Peanut Butter Traffik Jam is the after-hours note that says he can do this other thing too, and do it with style. It’s a sly, cohesive listen that sits at the crossroads of psych, library and hip‑hop, made by a musician who knows his way around a groove and a tape machine. Not a museum piece, not a nostalgia act. Just a very satisfying, very replayable record that feels like Melbourne through a sepia lens. Pop it on a lazy Sunday or cue it up while you thumb through the bins, and see if you don’t start planning which Traffik Island vinyl to pick up next.