Image by: Maclean Stephenson

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:

The Electorate – You Don’t Have Time To Stay Lost (FEATURE ALBUM)
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A. Swayze & the Ghosts – Paid Salvation
Cults – Host
Dro Carey – Nothing Is a Solo Project
El Tee – Everything Is Fine
Fenne Lily – Breach
Steve Arrington – Down to the Lowest Terms: The Soul Sessions

SINGLES:

Bootsy Collins – The Power of the One
Bryan Estepa – Admit Now, Pay Later
Elana Stone – Permanent Limbo
Hachiku – I’ll Probably Be Asleep
Le Pie – Little Spoon
Tamar Aphek – Show Me Your Pretty Side

After a decade of releasing EPs and singles, the Sydney electronic producer Dro Carey (aka Eugene Ward) comes through with his debut LP Nothing Is a Solo Project.  The title is an apt thesis statement, as Ward collaborates with up-and-coming musicians both local and overseas – including Jamaica’s Alexx A-Game and Haitian-born Beni Moun – for an eclectic record that mixes techno, grime, dancehall, and ambient. Where in less capable hands the mix of ingredients may have come off as scatterbrained, the approach here makes for a exhilarating listen from one of Sydney’s most innovative musicians.

Funk legend Steve Arrington returns with his latest album Down to the Lowest Terms: The Soul Sessions. His first album since his 2013 collaboration with Dâm-Funk Higher, Down sees the singer work with producers Knxwledge and J Rocc for a record that has one foot in 1970s funk music and the other in the sounds and politics of the current day. This is perhaps best heard on the standout track ‘Make a Difference’, where Arrington, over DJ Harrison’s lo-fi production, sings his family’s slave history into a chorus – an inspired and confronting choice that shows at the age of sixty-four, Arrington is still making essential music.