Image by: Sacks and Co.

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:

Steve Arrington – Down to the Lowest Terms: The Soul Sessions (FEATURE ALBUM)
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Braille Face – Original Cast Recording
Cults – Host
Fleet Foxes – Shore
GL – You Read My Mind
Mildlife – Automatic
Sufjan Stevens – The Ascension
Tim Heidecker – Fear of Death
Will Butler – Generations

SINGLES:

Deep Sea Diver – Impossible Weight (feat. Sharon Van Etten)
Faye Webster – Better Distractions
The Finalists – Ignore All the Hate (On Your Telephone)
The Luke Sinclair Set – Boots to the Grave
Maple Glider – As Tradition
Tune-Yards – nowhere, man.

Sufjan Stevens made his name in the early 2000s as the ambitious indie-folk wunderkind who was going to record an album for each state in America. He only got two states in before admitting the project was a joke; but fifteen years later, Stevens has finally turned his eye back to America at large. The Ascension, his eighth solo album, is an electro-pop record that acts as Stevens’ grand examination of his relationship with the US: a country he obviously holds a deep love for, as well as a revulsion. History, race, violence, religion, consumerism, love, and sex are all Stevens’ focus, but he’s never glib enough to provide a simple message for the listener. Instead, he offers the mantra “Don’t do to me what you did to America” as his closing statement – the closest to a thesis statement found in this fascinating and complex album.

Melbourne space-jazz quartet Mildlife return with their second album Automatic. As with their 2018 debut Phase, Automatic sounds like a mix between Crossings-era Herbie Hancock, Vangelis’ Blade Runner soundtrack, and early Madonna. Over four-to-the-floor drum beats, the group conjure psychedelic jazz epics on synths, guitars and flutes that feel like they reach to the stars, all with the danceability of a 12″ disco remix.