The Goon Sax – Psychic

For fans of: Joy Division, the Jesus and Mary Chain, Alex Cameron

The Goon Sax have evidently been studying their well-worn piles of mid-80s NME magazines, with shards of everything from the Cure and the Smiths through to Echo and the Bunnymen and Joy Division contained within this doomy, gloomy track. A relentlessly pounding drum machine sounds like sheet metal being hammered in a grim Manchester factory, while Louis Forster’s baritone vocals elicit emotion only by avoiding it almost entirely. As he repeats, “there’s something on the track”, he could be talking about a body on a trainline or a glitch on a recording file, such is the dead-eyed delivery. As you may have gleaned from his name, Forster is the son of a Go-Between, although he employs none of that band’s jangle, preferring washes of synth and guitars. The deftness of Riley Jones’ backing vocals adds light to the dark corners. Psychic is a marvellous, moody tune, and augurs well for album number three.

For more: Mirror II, the band’s third album, is out 9 July. Until then, listen to previous single In the Stone.

Gang of Youths – The Angel of 8th Ave

For fans of: The Gaslight Anthem, Bruce Springsteen, the Hold Steady

In the same week that the Killers and Bruce Springsteen teamed up for a song named Dustland, Gang of Youths released the first single since their triumphantly successful second album Go Farther In Lightness, which seems very fortuitous timing given the Springsteenian title and sound of The Angel of 8th Ave. Frontman David Le’aupepe referred to this song as the bridge between the last album and the next, but to these ears, this track could have been plucked from their last record – which, of course, will come as very welcome news for fans. It has that same “last chance power drive” urgency that all the best Gang of Youths songs ring with, where life and death are intermingled, love bleeds and crawls across broken glass, and a vengeful God is always hovering somewhere in the background, ready to take back any grace he offered up just to prove the world is cruel. This is another big-hearted song from a band who always swing for the fences.

For more: Gang of Youths release their third album later in 2021.

Natalie Imbruglia – Build It Better

For fans of: The Cardigans, Robyn, Fun

It’s been 11 years since Natalie Imbruglia last released an album of originals. Her last one took four years to make and involved collaborations with Chris Martin and Daniel Johns, but despite an extensive and expensive promotional campaign, 2009’s Come to Life was dead on arrival. It sold less than 1,000 copies, missed the charts, and saw her dropped from her UK and US labels. Imbruglia went on a musical hiatus, broken only with a 2015 covers album that also failed to connect. But that’s the past. As she sings here: “When it all falls down, gotta build it better.” And she has done just that, going back to what she does best: life-affirming pop, where love is messy and best served with breezy production and huge, hooky choruses. Despite the messaging on her 7m-selling debut album, Imbruglia operates best when she goes straight down the middle, using her emotive vocals and indie pop smarts to deliver clever, catchy tunes like Build It Better.

For more: Her album Firebird is out 24 September.

Sampology feat Allysha Joy – Suffer and Swim

For fans of: Late Night Tales, Morcheeba, Autechre

Sampology makes music for the morning after. The Brisbane-based sonic explorer proves the easy-listening genre to be a misnomer with this rhythmically complex jazz piece, skittering around like an Energiser bunny coming down. Allysha Joy’s vocals elicit a sadness that rubs against the spritely instrumentals, while everyone seeking a dance beat to hold onto are advised to look elsewhere. Sampology wrote and recorded the majority of his forthcoming album during the bushfires of 2019-20, and while that isn’t implicit in this track, a heavy pall still hangs over it, despite the skipping samples and Beau Diako’s unique guitar lines trying to offer up some light.

For more: New album Regrowth is out 3 September.

Emma Russack – Space and Time

For fans of: Nick Drake, Holly Throsby, Carole King

Emma Russack’s delicate Winter Blues was one of those perfectly timed albums, coming at the end of the abnormally cold winter of 2019, an introspective, glacier-paced, soothing collection of songs. Of course, we weren’t to know what would follow: a summer of searing bushfires and city smoke, then the real winter of discontent as the world went into hibernation. Now, two winters later, Russack offers up another salve, all warm acoustics and reflective remembrances. Reverb is used to great effect, imbuing the recording with a dreamy quality that matches the nostalgia of the lyrics. Beautiful backwards vocals echo each lyric line, being sucked into the ether like cigarette smoke through an open window. Like all of Russack’s songs, it’s over too soon, and you immediately want to listen again.

For more: Check out her 2019 album Winter Blues, or her other band Snowy Band, who release the album Alternative Endings on 27 August.

KYE feat Sampa the Great – Gold

For fans of: Outkast, Jhene Aiko, Moses Sumney

An infectious slice of neo-soul, Gold sparkles like its namesake, with twinkling keyboards, Motown-y piano parts, and KYE’s warm, inviting vocals all giving an Erykah Badu meets Andre 3000 vibe. Of special note is the shimmering masterpiece of production from Sydney’s 18YOMan that reveals more layers with each listen. The only problem with releasing a song this shiny right now is that it should really be a contender for the ever-elusive Song of the Summer; hearing this in the depths of lockdown winter is almost too cruel. Sampa the Great offers up dexterous verses that skip across the track, as KYE offers sun-drenched countermelodies guaranteed to drive the cold away. Glorious.

For more: KYE is touring from July through to September, Covid-willing, including an 8 August show at the Sydney Opera House with Sampa the Great.

Rest for the Wicked – Bones

For fans of: Mercury Rev, MGMT, the Flaming Lips

This is one of the best, and weirdest, debut singles that has been released in Australia for a long time. Creeping psychedelia, with technicolour production, and snippets of Beach Boys-style harmonies blasting in and out of focus like a detuned radio, Bones is an ode to the unknown, the type of art rock that Luke Steele would give his right shoulder parrot to be able to write in 2021. A theremin-sounding synth haunts the track, as interloping digital bleeps make it all sound like a transmission from a distant planet. Rest for the Wicked is the musical marriage of Melburnian Ben Townsend and multi-skilled Sydney producer Tasker, and the palette they have painted from here is rich in tone and staggering in depth. Most artists work up to this level of ambition, don’t they?

For more: The band headline shows in Sydney and Melbourne next month, both of which have sold out. Check out the fluorescent video for this song.

Spacey Jane – Lots of Nothing

For fans of: Wilco, Kurt Vile, Powderfinger

Spacey Jane music is for road trips: those sun-soaked memory-making trips, where everything glistens and glows and this song becomes the song that shoots you back that one perfect moment. Of course, there are a lot of perfect moments like that throughout one’s life, which is lucky, because Spacey Jane have a lot of those perfect moment songs. And while many artists aim to make the song of the summer and end up making Coke commercials instead, Spacey Jane have an astonishingly high success rate, evidenced by the popularity of their Hottest 100 No 2 Booster Seat and the three other songs that also made the list last year. Caleb Harper’s voice has accumulated more grit since then, as evidenced on Lots of Nothing, the first taste from their forthcoming album. The band seem more confident as a whole – not surprisingly, given the winning year they’ve just had.

For more: Listen to their debut album, Sunlight.

Jack Ladder – Astronaut

For fans of: Nick Cave, Echo and the Bunnymen, Tom Waits

Jack Ladder has crafted five excellent studio albums to date, carving out his own signature space in an enviable corner of art rock that includes similarly dramatic, dark artists such as Rowland S Howard, David McComb, and Kirin J Callinan (who performs in Ladder’s backing band, the Dreamlanders). Astronaut is a song of existential longing, similar in theme to Life on Mars or Rocket Man with its elongated timeline, space wanderings, and escape hatch mentality. It’s just as relevant when the pandemic has slowed time, compressed the future, and has many of us asking “who am I gonna be when I get free?”. A hollow snare beats like a mechanical heart, majestic strings drape down from all corners, and the track builds brilliantly, floating up and up into the infinite space of the universe as Ladder’s rich baritone remains anchored to the Earth.

For more: Jack Ladder’s sixth album Hijack! will be out 10 September.

Geoffrey O’Connor and Jonnine – For As Long As I Can Remember

For fans of: Bernie Hayes, the Lucksmiths, Randy Newman

Rain falls steadily, brass buzzes like a bee, jazz fingers click, and a smooth vocal slides over the top of a cheesy drum machine. Fans of O’Connor’s psych-pop band the Crayon Fields might be shocked by this seeming 180-degree turn. Others may have noticed they always leaned awfully close to the likes of the Zombies and the Beach Boys – bands with an ear for jazz chords, despite their pop hearts. The title track from a forthcoming album filled with duets, For As Long As I Can Remember, offers up ruminations for the early hours, cabaret-style lounge music that glides artfully close to cheese without overindulging. O’Connor recalls misty-eye memories of 2008, even if during those times he was only half-present, longing for the past while in his heyday. Jonnine Standish from HTRK is a suitably distant duet partner, her voice the whisper of a memory one can’t quite recall.

For more: For As Long As I Can Remember will be out soon.