Powderfinger – Day By Day
For fans of: Powderfinger!
Like Bernard Fanning’s happiness, Powderfinger have spent this year slowly creeping back (into the national psyche). They streamed a live gig in May that acted as both a fundraiser and a reunion (albeit from five separate buildings), then they celebrated the 20-year birthday of their half-a-million selling Odyssey Number Five with a hefty reissue which leaped back into the chart at #2. And now comes this stomper: their first new music in close to eleven years.
Day By Day isn’t “new” per se, being recorded in 2003 during the sessions for Vulture Street – the band’s rocky reaction to the aforementioned Odyssey Number Five. During that time, Powderfinger were fighting their acoustic urges as well as burying their more soul-inspired tunes (see: Rita), which is no doubt why this gem failed to see the light of day until now. As the lead single from a forthcoming rarities collection, it sets an impossibly high watermark, with a soaring chorus, soulful gospel backing vocals and Fanning at full tilt. As the singer himself said in the press material for this single: “I’m actually amazed we didn’t find a place for it on the record.” With its “one day at a time” motif, perhaps it’s better we have this song now, when we most need it.
For more: Powderfinger’s May gig is available as an EP titled One Night Lonely.
Flowerkid – Miss Andry
For fans of: Lily Allen, Billie Eilish, Troye Sivan
With major label deals in the UK, US and Australia, and the management team that propelled Billie Eilish to fame, the fate of 19-year-old Sydneysider Flynn Sant already seems sewn up, two songs into his musical career. But as many “next big things” have shown, all the major label money in the world won’t set the charts on fire unless there is something of substance to cling to – and, despite the name, Flowerkid demands to be taken seriously.
On this starkly personal song, Sant unravels his complicated, conflicting feelings about straight men over a bed of synth chords and light dance beats. His own misandry is turned inwards, informed by childhood trauma and routinely triggered: a blend of envy and rage filtered through self-loathing. He fantasises about his attacker’s blood on his hands, then dismisses these as the thoughts of a lunatic. It’s a level of self-analysis most traumatised teenagers don’t possess, yet expressed in plain language that offers no escape; there are no ornate metaphors as masks. Much like the aforementioned Eilish, Sant seems to have expelled his singular experience in a universal way. Hopefully universal acclaim also follows.
For more: Listen to his debut single, Boy With The Winfields And The Wild Heart.
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – Straws In The Wind
For fans of: Donovan, Marc Bolan, Pond
2020 has been a relatively unproductive year for King Gizz, and I use that qualifier because this is the third successful single the band have released so far – decent pandemic output by most measures, but hibernation for a group that recently put out five studio albums in a single calendar year. King Gizz have a long history of genre-skipping, although it’s usually within the loose realms of psychedelic rock and all its tripped-out cousins. Last year’s foray into thrash metal seemed an excuse to show off their musical chops, while this year’s two singles have both been Covid-themed, if musical consistent. Straws In The Wind wanders through folksier fields, a gentle meditation on impermanence that suits both the late 60s feel of the music, and the pandemic in which they are releasing it. Ambrose Kenny-Smith’s vocals are slightly phased while an untreated acoustic dances across the track, closely mic’d and imprecisely played to suggest warmth and spontaneity were the orders of the day. It will be interesting to see whether Straws In The Wind sits alone strumming a stoned guitar, or becomes a slice of a larger album. Either way, I’m sold.
For more: Check out their 2020 songs, Honey and Some Of Us, or explore any of their 15 studio albums.
Lupa J – Supermarket Riots
For fans of: Faithless, Dua Lipa, Sophie Ellis-Bextor
“Just stay on the phone, I need you,” Lupa J pleads in the chorus to this glassy dance track, written in the lead-up to an impending lockdown and foreseeing the chaos that cast a pall over 2020. With its timely talk of stockpilers fighting in supermarkets, the eerie quiet of the streets and a world on indefinite pause, Supermarket Riots tackles the tyranny of distance that forced its way into our universe – and is the third part of a mini-album due out next month. “I don’t like what this turns me into” is the other line in the song’s chorus; hard times force us to better understand who we actually are – and sometimes, with the doors locked and the world on pause, we aren’t too thrilled with what we find out.
For more: Lupa J releases a mini-album next month. Listen to the debut album, Swallow Me Whole, until then.
Mallrat – Rockstar
For fans of: Mazzy Star, Rilo Kiley, Cigarettes After Sex
Grace Shaw names Lana Del Rey as the lead influence for this track, and while it has that same ethereal quality of her music, there is a lightness here that’s missing from Del Rey’s sound, with all the heavy drama, Hollywood strings, and deified dead superstars that her records contain. Shaw’s music leans closer to Lily Allen or Lisa Mitchell, and while Del Rey seems resigned to the tragedies of fate, Shaw is foreseeing a world in which she both marries a rock star, and wins all the Grammys herself. It’s all projection to mask a current heartache, a coping mechanism all-too-familiar to those in the gutter, looking up at the stars. But it works! Shaw is yet to release an album, but already has an impressive arsenal of songs – and a huge following – up her sleeve. No wonder she sees a bright future.
For more: Her 2019 EP Driving Music features hit single Charlie and five other gems.
Elana Stone – Permanent Limbo
For fans of: Pulp, Happyland, the Crystals
With All My Exes Live In Texas, Elana Stone slings Americana with a Sydney twist, while her solo records to date have luxuriated in a smoky jazz sound. Permanent Limbo, on the other hand, is a straight up electro-pop song, with chugging verses that recall Common People and bright sonic flourishes straight out of a children’s book-on-tape. It’s twee and instant, and could soundtrack an ice cream commercial – but Stone cannot escape her own penchant for a big chorus, nor can she hide the power of her voice. Both come into full force around the two-minute mark, with a huge soulful chorus, and a stomping 4/4 beat giving this the feel of a Phil Spector 45. Even more curious than this being the new Elana Stone single is that Sydney troubadour Josh Pyke was her co-conspirator. What results is a sparkling pop single that tackles the complexities of digital relationships without taking any of it too seriously.
For more: Listen to Stone’s 2015 EP Kintsugi – although it’s quite a different beast to this.
Dami Im – Paper Dragon
For fans of: Coldplay, Evermore, Delta Goodrem
It makes a lot of sense that Paper Dragon was intended to be Dami Im’s entry into Eurovision 2021. It ticks all the required boxes: starts light and quirky, a treacly Disneyfied melody skips over a rhythm built from a ticking stopwatch, before timpani drums stomp in like giants and Dami declares that she is, indeed, a dragon with magic powers, the ability to breathe fire, and strength to fly for hours. It’s bold, anthemic, silly, and features a chorus that Florence Welch would be envious of. It also has the requisite crystal-shattering high notes, cloudy piano that clears just in time for the showstopper section, and a melody that pounds its way into your brain. It’s as lyrically lightweight as anything intended to be globally appreciated should be, but it’s still masterful pop. All this analysis seems secondary; as Dami sings, “don’t try to fight, watch and admire”.
For more: Dami is playing gigs! Catch her at the Tanks Arts Centre in Cairns on 9 October, or at Solbar in Maroochydore on 18 October.
Stevan – Impress You
For fans of: Craig David’s two-step years, Kid Cudi, Kid A
With his recently-released Just Kids mixtape already surpassing 5 million streams and finding an international audience along the way, Wollongong multi-instrumentalist Stevan continues to expand his sound past his earlier Frank Ocean-inspired R&B. Impress You is a unique beast: like a Drake emo-ballad produced by Aphex Twin, with Thom Yorke jumping in on keys.
A tropical keyboard line that pops up sporadically adds another off-kilter element, and walls of harmony acts as the main melodic instrument. As with his previous releases, Stevan plays all the instruments on this track, although he is helped along with a production assist from LUCIANBLOMKAMP, who has added sheen to 6LACK and Mallrat tunes in the past. The UK garage beats are a new element, and a very welcome one too.
For more: Check out the Just Kids mixtape.
Chet Faker – Low
For fans of: Stevie Wonder, Flume, Indie Arie
After a few years recording underneath his decidedly less-Googleable given name Nick Murphy, the Chet Faker moniker has returned, and, with it, the blend of washed-out digital production and warm analogue instrumentation that permeates his most successful records. A laconic bassline and hand percussion leads this return, while Murphy croons and coos soulfully with an instantly familiar chorus that demands to be chanted by crowds. Blue-eyed soul is a tough thing to get right, but Murphy’s sonorous voice has always overridden such concerns; he emerged close to a decade ago with a cover of Blackstreet’s No Diggity, successfully collaborated with Flume when both artists were operating at their commercial peak, and now he slides comfortably back into a sound that’s equal parts Motown, Chillout Sessions and Kanye’s Sunday Service. Amen!
For more: Listen to 2014’s Built On Glass album.
Cry Club – Nine Of Swords
For fans of: The Killers, M83, the Mavis’s
When you’re down on your luck, you can begin to rely even more on the uneven hand of chance. In the case of Cry Club, vocalist Heather Riley wants desperately to get better – a non-specific wish if ever there was one – but keeps drawing the wrong card from what seems to be a stacked deck. This morose situation is certainly not reflected in the giddy propulsion of the music: a widescreen, major-key pop anthem that never lets off the throttle, the type of sugary sound that synth warriors from the 1980s saw as being of the future. Ironically, with this generation’s fetish for the plastic warmth of the retro/futuristic sounds from that decade, groups like Cry Club have borne these predictions out. The production is lush, the synths twinkle and the drums gallop along, but it’s Riley’s voice that’s the star here, sounding at turns powerful and wounded, sweet and savage.
For more: Debut album God I’m Such A Mess is out November 13.
