Image by: Nik Freitas

Welcome to the new music review where we connect you with some of the best new music from around the world. Read on, click through to our Spotify playlist and enjoy it all on 2SER!

Tiny Ruins – Olympic Girls (FEATURE ALBUM)
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Better Oblivion Community Center – Better Oblivion Community Center
Rustin Man – Drift Code
Key Out – What Do You See?
Beirut – Gallipoli
Jealous of the Birds – Wisdom Teeth
Guided By Voices – Zeppelin Over China
Sleeping Lessons – Down Time

Better Oblivion Community Center is a new collaboration between Phoebe Bridgers and Conor Oberst. Though their self titled debut was a surprise release, their partnership is not unexpected and started in 2017 when Bridgers sent demos of her debut album ‘Stranger in the Alps’ to Oberst, who became a huge champion and mentor. Oberst took Bridgers on tour, they frequently performed together on stage, and now on record. Cut from a similar songwriter cloth, where both are lyric-centered, there’s an abundance of snappy, quotable one liners here. It’s a folk record but with a gritty, rock and Americana stroke. Consistent but never boring. Check out their Japanese Breakfast directed video for ‘Dylan Thomas’ below.

Beirut‘s fifth album ‘Gallipoli’ began frontman Zach Condon returned to this same vintage organ that he used on the first two Beirut albums. The Farfisa was inherited from a traveling circus’ keyboardist, when Condon was a teen working at a world cinema, and shipped cross country from his parent’s house. If you’re familiar to the band you’ll see them returning at their finest, and if you’re new to them there’s a lot to sink your teeth in here with this being a very distinct Beirut album. Plenty of Balkan inspired sounds that come through and organ and horn arrangements that swell to heady heights on this rich and gorgeous album.

And closer to home, we’ve got Sydney three piece Key Out  and their debut ‘What (do) you see’, produced by J Walker aka Machine Translations.  There’s a dreamlike quality to these songs with some shoegaze flourishes and a textured wall of sound, with a whole lot of cut and thrust. Loads of reverberating atmosphere here and proof that although each of the band’s members are seasoned musicians, there’s always room for experimentation.

 Plus another Cass McCombs single ahead of next Friday’s album, electronic flavoured country from Lambchop, Heather Woods Broderick’s folk haunt, a brand new project in Sacred Paws, and homegrown talent by way of The Teskey Brothers, and Stephen Bailey.