Maple Glider – Two Years
For fans of: Lana Del Rey, Cat Power, Mazzy Star
The latest single from the second album by Melbourne indie-folk singer Maple Glider (AKA Tori Zietsch) has big Lana Del Rey energy. A jazzy swagger – sparse but woozy – underpins Zietsch’s signature breathy vocals while the melody meanders with the same uncertainty as the doomed relationship being deliberated over. Ever-shifting time signatures take the listener to the brink of a standstill – and breakup – before the cycle is fated to repeat. – Janine Israel
For more: Maple Glider’s second album, I Get Into Trouble, is out 13 October
Sunscreen – Drain
For fans of: Lush, the Ocean Party
Sydney band Sunscreen’s particular brilliance has always been big, breezy, pop melodies, but they reach new heights on new single Drain. The song is a rollicking jangle anthem, fuelled by 80s guitar hooks and Sarah Sykes’ swooning vocals. The track is a catharsis of sorts, about purging a broken relationship and watching the residues wash away. The film clip is great too: Sunscreen plays a despairing wedding band who cannot help but meddle in the doomed nuptials taking place. – Isabella Trimboli
For more: Listen to Sunscreen’s 2019 EP Falling in the Elevator.
Juice Webster – Black Coat, Black Skirt
For fans of: Clairo, Big Thief, Faye Webster
There’s both beauty and chaos in Juice Webster’s music, charting the many anxieties of modern life and love. The Melbourne-based singer-songwriter’s debut album, Julia, is full of well-crafted indie pop gems, including this standout. A glitchy, distorted guitar line wails subtly underneath Webster’s silky voice and more typical instrumentation as she sings with raw honesty about the fear that accompanies the uncertain beginnings of new love. This desperate, tender song captures something profound, painful and true. – Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen
For more: Julia is out now
Platonic Sex – When I Come Home, I’ll Find a Hill to Die On
For fans of: Camp Cope, Deadstar, PJ Harvey
This buzzy Brisbane alt-rock outfit had us at the song title. WICHIFAHTDO will resonate with anyone who has been their own worst enemy in a fight. The lyrics splutter like the emotional exhaust from a gruelling therapy session as Bridget Brandolini’s vocals recall Stories from the City-era PJ Harvey, all falsetto and ferocity colliding with distorted guitars before cracking into a chorus of pure catharsis. – JI
For more: Check out Platonic Sex’s debut EP, 2022’s Grip
EXEK – It’s Just a Flesh Wound, Darling
For fans of: Total Control, John Maus, Molly Nilsson
There is a melancholic unease that creeps throughout the latest single from the prolific Melbourne post-punk band. It’s Just a Flesh Wound, Darling is a slow-moving track of chilling synths, shaky trumpets and ghostly vocals, recalling the more experimental and lo-fi side of 60s psych-rock. The lyrics are inspired by the late Polish writer Ryszard Kapuściński, whose reportage of war and uprising in the 20th century was often infused with magic realism. – IT
For more: Listen to band’s 2022 record Advertise Here
Logic1000 – Grown On Me
For fans of: Daphni, Overmono, Anz
The first single by Sydney-born producer Samantha Poulter in over a year is a luminescent deep house cut built around, surprisingly, a UKG cut by Blink, Bugzy Malone and Star.One, from earlier this year. It feels designed to soundtrack the final rays of sun before frost sets over her adoptive home town of Berlin. It’s a low-key but ingratiating return that befits its title, shimmering hi-hats fanning over the song like fragments from a sparkler. – Shaad D’Souza
For more: Logic1000’s recent slate of impeccable remixes, for Fever Ray, Niia and Moderat
Quan – Baddest Bitch
For fans of: Regurgitator, Beck, Flight of the Conchords
Coming a full 15 years since 2008 album The Amateur, the second solo release from Regurgitator’s Quan Yeomans is a five-track EP called Night Cream which leaves you begging for more. It’s headlined by this very funny, potty-mouthed piss-take about being the baddest middle-aged mofo around – “Act like I’m 36 / but actually / I’m 50, bitch!” – scored to a squelchy synth groove that recalls Regurgitator’s Polyester Girl. Another track, Believer, playfully quotes Van Halen’s Why Can’t This Be Love. Regurgitator’s influence on Australian hip-hop has always been undersold, and Quan’s flow and lyrical dexterity is on display here. – Andrew Stafford
For more: The Night Cream EP is out now – with a new Regurgitator album (their eleventh) to follow
Yirinda – Yuangan (Dugong)
For fans of: Max Richter, Gurrumul, Stars of the Lid
The new single from Yirinda, a collaboration between songman Fred Leone and contrabassist Samuel Pankhurst, reinterprets a hunting and migratory song of the Butchulla people from the Fraser Coast region. The original song, recorded around 1960, is preserved by the University of Queensland Anthropology Museum. Yirinda’s version is a string-led experimental soundscape blending ambient and classical elements, with Leone singing in traditional language – a cinematic, sumptuous bridge from past to present and beyond. – GN
For more: Yirinda’s self-titled debut album is out February 2024
Alice Ivy featuring Mallrat and Jelani Blackman – Broke My Heart
For fans of: Brent Faiyaz, Raye, Victoria Monet
Alice Ivy and Mallrat’s most recent collaboration, 2022’s Teeth, was an oblique pop song shot through with the sound of 90s rock. Their latest song together, which features London vocalist Jelani Blackman, is a decidedly sweeter confection – lit softly with Ivy’s keys, synths fizzing through its atmosphere like asteroids – but it still has a steely countenance. Mallrat’s hook is soft but accusatory, bordering on condemnatory: “Aren’t you the one that broke my heart?” – SDS
For more: Mallrat’s 2022 single Teeth; Alice Ivy’s Howlin’ at the New Moon
Ashley Naylor – Spaceship
For fans of: Even, Jeff Beck, early Pink Floyd
After the gobsmacking double album triumph of Even’s Reverse Light Years, leader Ashley Naylor has decided to go … further, with an all-instrumental album of cosmic guitar-hero jams. It sounds intimidating, except that Naylor is, alongside Ed Kuepper, the only Australian musician who could conceivably pull such a thing off. Spaceship (also the name of his new band) is nearly nine minutes of axe-king bliss. Naylor would tell you with a knowing grin that it’s total self-indulgence, but it’s brilliantly arranged and executed, and a joy to listen to. – AS
For more: Soundtracks Vol 2 is out 20 October
