Kicking off an exciting and busy new year, The Electorate release ‘Peace Love & Kindness’, the second single from their forthcoming 2025 album By Design, due out in May.
‘Peace Love & Kindness’ (premiered by Chimes on 2SER) is the second new single from Gadigal/Sydney trio The Electorate (Eliot Fish, Joshua Morris & Nick Kennedy), following the release of the hooky, metronomic and angular (2SER featured) single ‘Face of a Giant‘ late last year.
The members of The Electorate have all been part of the Australian music scene for a number of years, with ties to Big Heavy Stuff, Knievel, The Apartments, Imperial Broads, Atticus and the Templebears. This invaluable experience has shaped their sound and informed their astute musical choices, evident on their 2020 debut album, You Don’t Have Time To Stay Lost, which received a 4.5-star review from Rolling Stone, and their upcoming new album, By Design, set to be released this May.
‘Peace Love & Kindness‘ is a naive song of hope, written in the crushing wake of the failed Voice referendum, and the horrors of Gaza + Ukraine. Built on a riff that refused to go away, and nodding to the lyrics of too many other sad idealists, the song is a plea for decency and tolerance in a world that appears increasingly indifferent to both.
Produced by Wayne Connolly (Teskey Brothers/Babe Rainbow/Underground Lovers), ‘Peace Love & Kindness‘ was the last song The Electorate would track for By Design. Whilst the verses had been locked in prior to the recording, the chorus took shape under Wayne’s experienced eyes and ears. As the band channelled the last of their energy, they pelted across the finishing line in a haze of frenzy, relief and joy.
Over a drum machine intro The Electorate steal and build their naive plea for peace, love and kindness. The clocklike tick of Josh’s guitar and Nick’s drums fuse effortlessly, whilst Eliot’s bass floats across the verses and frantically fuels the choruses. Over harmonies and handclaps, The Electorate yelp out in favour of a fairer, more tolerant world.
“The first line of this song should have been ‘I wanted to cry on referendum night’, because that was exactly how I felt. A profound loss and disappointment in a nation I thought was kinder than it has proven to be,” says guitarist and singer Josh Morris. “Roll that frustration into the horrors of Gaza, Ukraine, and the other wars raging that we simply get used to, and I remembered how easy it was to crawl under the comforting blanket of cynicism.”
Morris realised that seeing those horrors through the eyes of his own children showed up his deadened cynicism as just an ignorant cop-out. “This song is my active attempt to reverse that cynicism and embrace hope as a naive act of defiance against the shit-show of ignorance and intolerance. To harness hope and turn it into small, common acts of decency, tolerance and kindness. Jam the static of those trying to divide us. Be kind,” Morris implores. “At the end of the day, this is just an indie pop song with no answers and one question – what is so wrong with peace love and kindness?”
‘Peace Love & Kindness’ is out now on Bandcamp, streaming services and Amrap for our community radio friends across Australia.