Every week a plethora of big name acts, Australian musicians and little-known musos drop brand spankin’ new tracks on the internet. We’ve trawled through the internet to find some of our favourites and plucked them from the masses.
FKA Twigs – ‘Two Weeks’
FKA twigs is music’s most fascinating rising star. The UK singer’s sophomore EP, EP2, is still six steps ahead of the pop game and it was released in October last year. Now, with her latest single ‘Two Weeks’, the first taste of her forthcoming debut album which drops in August, the doe-eyed enigma has once again travelled lightyears ahead of her contemporaries with her avant-oddball, hyper-futuristic R&B. (DM)
Slow Magic – ‘Girls’
ince the release of 2012’s critically acclaimed Triangle and having recently shared the stage with artists Gold Panda and XXYYXX, Slow Magic has a bit of a reputation to uphold, and with the release of the latest single ‘Girls’ the masked producer lives up to the hype.
‘Girls’ is the first single off Slow Magic‘s upcoming album How To Run Away, due for release later this year (via Create/Control) and it’s a pretty stellar first single at that. Go on, try and not let that pulsating looped beat drag you in- it’s impossible. (LD)
Ali E – ‘We Are Strangers’
Ali Edmonds is a lass that has knocked around the Aussie music scene for some time now. You may be familiar with the songstress’ smokey vocals from the likes of Little Athletics, Heavy Beach and Damn Terran – or perhaps you were a fan of her kickass debut solo effort of 2012, Landless.
No matter if or where you first dug the Melbourne artists’ sounds, Ali E has returned to her burning solo project with ‘We Are Strangers,’ and man has it left us begging for more. The track is a raw example of Ali E’s grungy prowess that flits between swirling guitars to all-out buzz-fuzzers, whilst sonically featuring guests including old bandmate Leigh Ewbank on drums, Anto Skene playing bass and Lucy Rash of TANTRUMS on the violin. (JH)
Augie March – ‘After The Crack Up’
In case you missed the memo, much-loved Melbourne band Augie March are no longer one of Australia’s most missed musical entities, but an active unit once more, with a brand new album set for release before the year is out.Today we get to hear the sounds that breaks Augie March’s five year silence, in the form of ‘After The Crack Up’, taken from the band’s forthcoming fifth studio album.
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With its lulling ‘la la las’ offering a simple entry point to considerably dense lyrical territory, ‘After The Crack Up’ presents a leisurely march back into the comforting arms of Augie March. It’s a splendid little taste of the band’s first new collection of material since 2008′s (since fittingly titled) album, Watch Me Disappear and their subsequent ‘indefinite hiatus’ the following year. Now “liberated” of their previous record label, and invigorated by the freedom, we can’t wait to hear what comes after ‘After The Crack Up’. (AN)
Shorts – ‘Berlin’
Picture a sonic cocktail of lush psychedelic meandering, douses of heartwarming jangle pop hooks, walls of fuzzy reverb and a subtle sprinkle of Aussie-ocker vocals and you’ve got Shorts, the project of ex-Melbourne now-Brooklyn artist Mikael Caterer, formerly of the duo Love Connection who also plays in Scott & Charlenes’s Wedding. Caterer has soaked up his surroundings to produce a one-of-a-kind Australian interpretation of the psych-tinged dreamy alt-rock that is currently emanating from Brooklyn, NYC. (JH)
Phil Selway – ‘Coming Up For Air’
Sat up the back on the drumstool, Radiohead drummer Phil Selway has always been one of modern music’s most understated yet crucial performers, but he really surprised everyone when he proved he could also write a decent tune, and had a pleasantly airy singing voice to boot, on his first solo album, 2010’s Familial.
Now with an extended amount of downtime from his dayjob with the influential Oxford group, Selway is ready to surprise everyone again with his second solo endeavour, Weatherhouse, the first sounds of which demonstrate Selway has left behind the Nick Drake folk-isms for an intriguing new sonic direction. ‘Coming Up For Air’ is cloaked in the darker shades of Radiohead’s recent electronic-leaning output, with a cavernous rimshot and thick synth work, but the track’s brooding is inverted in the chorus, flipping back on itself with delicate guitar patter and Selway’s plaintive singing. All in all, it proves that Thom Yorke isn’t the only interesting member with prospects beyond Radiohead. (AN)
Grimes ft. Blood Diamonds – ‘Go’
Grimes is back, with was is her first track in almost two years. Originally written for label buddy Rhianna, Rhi Rhi wasn’t feeling it and it was turned down.
Luckily this little banger has been given a second chance, produced by long time Grimes collaborator Blood Diamond, ‘Go’ sounds exactly like what you would expect if from a Rhianna and Grimes collab, and that’s not a bad thing. (LD)
Lower Spectrum – ‘KHLEVER’
In a current local scene of ‘beautiful’, ‘lush’, and ‘chill beats’ producers popping up all over the place, it’s refreshing to come across a producer whose sound shakes you a little, think more Jon Hopkins than Chet Faker.
Lower Spectrum is the working pseudonym of producer /composer Ned Beckley. Recently having relocated from Melbourne to Fremantle, Beckley is set to release his latest EP Traces (his fifth release under the Lower Spectrum monkier) via local label Zero Through Nine this coming July. (LD)
