Image: Jasper McMahon

Welcome to the new music review where we connect you with some of the best new music spinning on Breakfast, The Daily and Drive programs.

ALBUMS:

Alice Skye – I Feel Better But I Don’t Feel Good (FEATURE ALBUM)
—
DARKSIDE – Spiral
Emma-Jean Thackray – Yellow
Infinity Broke – Your Dream My Jail
JAZZPARTY – Nobody Gets Away
Mega Bog – Life, and Another
Molly Burch – Romantic Images

SINGLES;
Ducks Ltd. – 18 Cigarettes
Jack Davies and The Bush Chooks – Fire Eyes
Joan As Police Woman – Take Me To Your Leader
Johnny Hunter – The Floor
Molly Payton – Honey
Toby Martin – Linthwaite Houdini

Life, and Another, the fifth album from Mega Bog (Erin Birgy), sounds like if David Bowie had ASMR YouTube videos. The vocal delivery on the album is so quiet it’s as if Birgy was afraid of waking up her roommates while she recorded herself. But behind her are instrumentals so ecstatic and full of life – saxophones, pianos, and male choirs repeating her every whisper – that they wouldn’t sound too out of place on Ziggy Stardust or Aladdin Sane. There’s something beautiful about this contrast, that heroes don’t need to be the loudest voice in the room. A record to definitely hear this week.

New York duo DARKSIDE work in the space where techno and psychedelic rock meet. On their second album Spiral, Nicolás Jaar and Dave Harrington are so deep in the pocket that their small flourishes ring out like sirens: the sound of Jaar dripping water over over Harrington’s guitar soloing on the opening track will be one of the most thrilling sounds you’ll hear this year. This is patient music, for sure, but it’s an adventurous and striking work from two of America’s most exciting musicians.

Jamie Hutchings has been making music in the Sydney indie rock for a grip now, first with Bluebottle Kiss and now with Infinity Broke, but it’s clear from his latest album Your Dream My Jail that he hasn’t lost his touch for writing a great song. There’s an explosive energy to this record – a bit like what you’d find on a Protomatyr or the Drones album – with the trio’s bruising drums, angular basslines, and discordant guitars the perfect backdrop to Hutchings’ impressionist lyrics.