‘You Don’t Have Time to Stay Lost’ is the outstanding debut album from Sydney outfit The Electorate – appearing in my list of favourite antipodean albums for 2020. I described the album as perfectly capturing the ennui of modern middle-aged life and wrapping it into beautiful melodies and wistful observations that manage to express the inherent beauty of existence at the same time. The band has just released a single from the album – Skeleton – and it reflects the elegance and poignancy of the band’s writing.
The song touches on important themes. Eliot Fish from the band says:
It’s a song about alcoholism. Not a learned experience but an observed one. This is the only song on the album where Josh plays bass and I play guitar, and it helped us arrive at somewhere strange. I like how it starts kind of dishevelled and ends in quite a glorious harmonic reprise. I get nervous every time we play this song, still. I think it’s pretty common for songwriters to sometimes have an ideal version of a song in their head, so it can feel like you need to take a deep breath and give it everything you’ve got each time you step off the springboard.
The result is a track infused with melancholia and yet, antithetically, a bright sparkle of guitars and layered glorious harmonies with the pop sensibilities and melodies of fellow antipodeans Crowded House. There is a lovely almost chaotic but certainly visceral style that give it veracity and emotion.
The Electorate will officially launch ‘You Don’t Have Time to Stay Lost’ at
The Petersham Bowling Club on February 13, 2021 with support from other Backseat Mafia favourites Bryan Estepa and Buddy Glass. What a gig – although sadly already sold out but keep an eye out for more gigs.
The single is out on 22 January 2021 through Temple Bear Records/MGM but you can (and indeed, should) get the album through the link below.
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