South Summit - Ottoway
WA’s South Summit have crafted a tune perfect for festival stages with ‘Ottoway’, featuring reggae-influenced bass, coast-flavoured indie guitar riffs, epic horn lines and a huge drum groove. The chorus is super catchy, exploring themes of sense of home and pride in your origins, flaws and all. The arrangement and production play with pulling back and reintroducing layers throughout the song, including some cool moments with just drums and guitar under the vocals, moving to just bass, sometimes stripping back the drums with a low-cut. It’s a really well-structured song, and will put you in a groovy mood.
For fans of: Ocean Alley, Fat Freddy’s Drop
Hazel Mei - Closer
Hazel Mei’s latest release ‘Closer’ strikes a gorgeous balance between pop and jazz ideas, and between sampled electronic sounds and old-timey analogue tones. This song conjures a pallet of Autumnal hues and visions of vintage clothes - perfect for a Sunday afternoon stroll through the park and a cup of Chai on return to warm up. I love how the bridge dips into a swung section, which pairs so well with the production mimicking the tonal qualities of a phonograph. ‘Closer’ feels like it was created with a strong vision, and it really immerses you in its vintage-modern-fusion world.
For fans of: BENEE, Laufey
SAMMM - Whatever You Like
SAMMM’s songwriting is disarming, charming and, for want of a better term, unhinged? ‘Whatever You Like’ pairs some clean-toned delicate major 7 chords with an audacious and even pugnacious vocal, we get some overdriven moments to rock out to, and the last few bars give us a tempo-increase as if it’s about to launch into a speedy breakdown, only to have the song come to an end instead. It’s the kind of song I didn’t now what to make of at first, and then it grew on me - I love it. If you’re new to the world of SAMMM, give this one a few listens and you might just love it too.
For fans of: The Violent Femmes, The Wombats
Odette - Reverence
I have always loved Odette’s voice, but in this song I feel like she’s taken it to another level. In experimenting with her tones with what seems like more freedom than we’ve heard before, there’s an expressiveness and honesty that is so powerful here. ‘Reverence’ is short and sweet - it knows what it wants to say and says it clearly without beating around the bush. The intro section is beautiful, and the dissonant strings leading into the distorted guitar tones of the heavier B section go hard. Great use of light and shade in the arrangement from the soft-to-hard tones, the vulnerability to anger, and abrupt dynamic changes.
For fans of: Hiatus Kaiyote, Montaigne, WILLOW
Tessa Fleur - Long Hot Summer
‘Long Hot Summer’ feels like an old classic, with dreamy, breezy verses and an open cathartic chorus. The line “It’s been a long hot summer with you” instantly got stuck in my head, and it’s delivered beautifully; Tessa Fleur’s voice is smooth and rich like honey, and I love the little vocal flip from chest to head voice on “you”. Definitely add this tune to your playlist for your next long solo drive out of the city, a good one to "romanticise your life" to.
For fans of: Julia Jacklin, Mazzy Star, Rowena Wise
RYELLE - Circles
This is a really exciting debut from Meanjin’s RYELLE - ‘Circles’ is the tastiest of minimalistic funk-pop. With a soulful sultry vocal and some subby, stanky bass, this tune is full of pocket and groove. I particularly love the outro/B section - both the melody and the bass/synth line are super catchy, and this section feels like releasing pressure after the bulk of the song has been covertly building tension - tension you didn’t know as there until we reach this point. I’m excited to see what comes next!
For Fans of: Erykah Badu, Tom Misch
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