Image: Clemens Habicht

Welcome to the new music review where we connect you with some of the best new music spinning on Breakfast, The Daily and Drive programs.

ALBUMS:
Geoffrey O’Connor – For As Long As I Can Remember (FEATURE ALBUM)
—
Altin Gün – Âlem
Darren Cross – DISTORDER
Durand Jones & The Indications – Private Space
Liars – The Apple Drop
Mr Jukes & Barney Artist – The Locket
Torres – Thirstier

SINGLES:
Dolce Blue – Dream Catcher
Mac McCaughan – Dawn Bends
Milan Ring – Hide With You
Pip Blom – It Should Have Been Fun
Riflebirds – Debra
Unknown Mortal Orchestra – That Life

The Australian rock band Liars return with their latest album The Apple Drop. After the last two albums being essentially solo records, frontman Angus Andrew has opened up the project and invited Sydney drummer Laurence Pike and guitarist Cameron Deyell into the fold. The excitement of the band’s new phase is writ large in the album itself, as Andrew sings songs of sci-fi exploration – from the heights of other planets, down to the depths of the earth – set to churning synth lines and psychedelic guitars. But for all its uncanny weirdness, The Apple Drop is also one of the most welcoming and human records Andrew has made yet.

Some hip-hop fans complain too much about the sound of the genre today, but it can be nice every once in a while to get a new rap album which works in an older mode. London MC Barney Artist and producer Mr Jukes (Jack Steadman of Bombay Bicycle Club) have teamed up for their debut album The Locket. It’s clear from the opening seconds of the record that Steadman is harkening back to a ’90s/2000s east coast sound: soul samples, turntablism, and drunk beats serve as the backdrop for Barney Artist’s impressionist lyrics about life in London today. Nostalgic, sure, but there’s real joy in hearing an MC and producer so in sync like this.

’90s grunge-pop, for all the rapturous choruses you hear in a Liz Phair or Breeders song, is so often associated with heartbreak and devastation that writing a happy grunge song can be a bit like breaking the rules. But on Thirstier, New York singer-songwriter Torres (Mackenzie Scott) has does exactly that. Working with PJ Harvey collaborator Rob Ellis and Portishead’s Adrian Utley in a small studio in South Devon, England, Scott’s indie rock anthems are unashamedly abut euphoria of falling in love and not looking back.