Wave Racer - To Stop From Falling Off The Earth (LP) - Blue Vinyl

Wave Racer’s debut album, To Stop From Falling Off The Earth, lands like a sugar rush with a soft ache behind the eyes. Tom Purcell has been a fixture of Australia’s electronic scene since those early Future Classic days and the Flash Drive EP in 2015. Then he stepped back, retooled, and came back with a proper full length on 29 October 2021 that doesn’t just polish his sound, it reframes it. The bright, fizzy synths are still here, the meticulous drum programming too, but there’s a new centre of gravity. He’s singing now, and the record feels more intimate for it.

The opener sets the tone with that familiar prismatic shimmer, yet what follows digs into something more personal. You can hear it in the way the melodies lean into melancholy without losing their bounce, and in how the arrangements leave space for breath rather than stuffing every bar with tricks. It is still glossy, still buoyant, but it also feels lived in, like someone who knows how to throw a party and still tidy the house the morning after. Purcell has always had a knack for tactile sound design, those gleaming arpeggios and rubbery bass stabs that seem to glow under your fingertips. Here he shapes them around his voice and it clicks.

Look Up To Yourself is the clearest example. It moves with that crisp Wave Racer snap, but the hook is more than a earworm, it’s a pep talk sung into a mirror. The mix is clean and bright, with little synth flares that swoop in and out like gulls, and there’s a satisfying weight to the low end that keeps the whole thing grounded. What Are We Waiting For? goes in a different direction, building tension on a bed of glassy pads before letting the drums tumble in. The drop doesn’t overreach, it lands with a grin rather than a bang, which makes it stick longer.

This is an album you can put on for a late night walk or a Sunday arvo tidy. The pacing helps. Songs arc and exhale, so there is room for builds and small resolutions. Little production details reward repeat listens, that tiny pitch bend on a synth lead, a vocal layer tucked low in the left channel, the way a hi hat pattern shifts on the second chorus. Purcell’s reputation as a technician holds up, but he uses those skills in service of songs rather than showreels. The record nods to French touch and video game music without getting stuck in nostalgia. It sits close to hyperpop at times, then pulls back for something gentler.

As a debut album it also answers a quiet question that floated around after the early singles. Could Wave Racer’s glittering style stretch to album length without losing focus. The short answer is yes. The long answer is this record, which spins out a cohesive mood while giving each track its own personality. It is optimistic, but not naive. It is bright, but you can hear the shadows that make the colours pop.

For anyone crate digging, To Stop From Falling Off The Earth vinyl has become a nice talking point in shop chats, the kind of record a Melbourne record store might stick in the staff picks with a scribble that says trust us. If you see Wave Racer vinyl in the wild, do not think too long. It is the sort of production that snaps to life on wax, all that clean high end and springy bass sitting right in the pocket. And for those who buy Wave Racer records online, keep an eye on reissues or coloured variants, since Wave Racer albums on vinyl tend to disappear quicker than you’d expect from the shelves of vinyl records Australia shops.

The best part is how human this all feels. Electronic music can sometimes hide the person behind the machines. This album does the opposite. It invites you into the room. You can hear a producer letting go of a bit of the armour and trusting the song to carry him. It is a warm, generous listen, full of tiny joys, with enough bite to keep you coming back when the sugar fades.