Key to World Peace, the second album by Australian musician Sam Perry, aka Prophetic Justice Ministry, is an odd bird: Sometimes it rattles and churns, synth and drum machine scraping up against each other like ungreased pistons; at other points, it floats like fog, sounding a little like the creeping, elegant scores of Angelo Badalamenti. It frequently feels like a DIY folk record, not least when Perry, who was raised in New Zealand, faithfully covers Lana Del Rey’s “Mariners Apartment Complex” with a distinct Kiwi lilt. Uniting these decidedly disparate moods is a keen sense of atmosphere: Key to World Peace sounds like it was recorded live in some kind of emptied swimming pool, Perry standing at one end and his recording equipment at the other. The resulting album is rough in texture, gentle in tone, and immersive—a singer-songwriter record as soundbath.
Perry previously played with the intermittently great Christchurch TOPS-alikes Yumi Zouma, and is currently a member of the fantastic indie-rock group Who Cares?, whose beguiling 2024 EP has found a miniature stan army in Melbourne’s underground music world. Who Cares? and Prophetic Justice Ministry both fit squarely into a healthy lineage of spacious, spooky, ambient-leaning Oz-folk that also includes Hydroplane, The Lewers, Carla Dal Forno, HTRK’s Rhinestones, and a handful of the artists featured on compilations from Melbourne label A Colourful Storm. Technically, Perry’s music stands apart; the bulk of Key to World Peace is composed of short ambient interludes that tap into New Age music (“Aurora Drone Cam”) drone (“T-A”) and heady guitar music (“Trance 102”). But there’s a romantic placelessness about Perry’s production that still places it firmly within its home scene.
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That’s also due to the few straightforward songs that appear on Key to World Peace. “Life’s a Party” and “Love Drum” are rough-hewn, gorgeous acoustic guitar ballads that anchor the album’s flightier, more experimental side. The former comes across ironic and a little cynical—Perry’s incantation of “Life’s a paaaa-aaaa-rty/In the end,” against lurching percussion and guitar, is surely taking the piss. The latter, on the other hand, is steely and strong and romantic like Casablanca, or the poster of the ’70s A Star Is Born. The song is just coarsely strummed acoustic and Perry’s baritone; I can only make out certain phrases, like “When I look at you” and “la-la-la-la-la-la-love.” It just feels resolute in a way that the rest of the album, with its expansive instrumental interludes, doesn’t.
“Love Drum” captures infatuation so strongly and deeply, like “Wicked Game” or “Fade Into You” or, in fact, “Mariners,” into which it transitions almost seamlessly. It’s bold and, fundamentally, random to cover a recent classic so faithfully—and Perry’s slight version wouldn’t hold its own against Lana’s, one of the most indelible songs of the 21st century—but its solid, resolute tone feels spiritually akin to the suite of love songs that closes the album. “Spirit House Party,” the record’s final track, is another acoustic guitar ballad, but this one feels euphoric and optimistic, thanks in parts to its intermittent tambourine hits and Britpop chord progression. “Burning and restored again/It just keeps turning/Is it all the same?” Perry sings. Like the rest of the album, it’s atmospheric and searching. But the answer doesn’t feel that far out of reach.
