I’ve listened to this song so many times now that it feels like a word repeated and repeated to the point where it’s lost its meaning, sitting weirdly in your mouth like a mint leaf. Seriously mint leaves, how can you be so furry and also a food? Sort it out. The word is now just a sound and the sound seems foreign because all one can here are the individual phonemes, syllables and all those other pretty words that represents units of sound and so on. And so it is with this song. I’ve listened to it so many times now so as to drain it of its unifying liquids. It’s not just a song now, it’s a collection of stems layered over each other and I can’t help but hear them all individually. This is on me though, let no blame land on this here tune which you’ll soon note is one of the finest things released in recent (and not so recent) memory. Every one of said stems is meticulously crafted and aligned and so it seems, at least so far, that you can’t actually listen to this song too many times.

That voice though… That voice is what’s going to elevate Oscar Key Sung from tastemaker’s wetdream producer to international pitch-hitter. It’s a voice that’s surprisingly malleable too as demonstrated on Charles Murdoch’s Dekire where his usual heat is replaced by cold ice.

The track itself is more upbeat than anything he’s done under the Key Sung moniker and even his work in Oscar + Martin. For those of who have had the joy to see the live set in action you’ll know that this number is the heart of the performances by virtue of the four on the floor beat, resurgent dance section at the death and what’s likely the closest thing to a drop that you’ll ever hear on an Oscar Key Sung production. The future is nigh and it lives in Melbourne.

Six months back ADKOB dropped a jam called Lung Capacity. If you’re expecting me to follow that up with something like ‘now they’re back with…’ then NOPE. Just here to talk about that one song still. They’ve not released anything since so the way I see it, this could mean one of the following three things:

1) They’ve achieved their goals. They were shooting at 165 plays on soundcloud and 152 facebook followers and now they’ve arrived. Hit the showers, fellas, job well done.

2) They’ve failed to achieve their goals. They were shooting at 350,000 plays on soundcloud and 60,000 facebook followers and they didn’t even get close. They’ve immediately given up and are on indefinite hiatus.

3) They’ve let the sun set on their music career and are now pursuing another noble post-music career such as love, professional gaming, heroine, sports etc

To my mind those are surely the only credible outcomes. Six months people, SIX MONTHS. The song itself reminds me of a low-key Local Natives and it’s driven by a heavily affected vocal phrase in the chorus that’s been run so heavily through the filters that it’s barely recognisable as voice. At this point I’m still not even sure and am offering a bounty to anyone who’ll step forward with information. As things stand we’ll just have to wait and see what else the Sydneysiders have in store. Good start/end though.

The dirty, unkempt cynic that lives in the black meat sack just above my stomach has popped his head out momentarily to provide you with these opening thoughts. What’s the deal with a ‘summer single’? Why are they so much more sought after than a winter single? Some fool notion of romanticism and increased sales I imagine. And while we’re here, isn’t it strange the lengths people will go to in an effort to connect a track with “surf vibes” to summer.
Mid summer? “The perfect time for this jam!”
End of summer- “Clawing for the last scraps of summer!”
Beginning of summer- “Perfect to get you ready for the summer!”
Mid winter- “Winter warmer to remind you of summer!”

Seriously, this guy with Summer, forget about it. Anyway, this brings me to the Gunns track which is perfect to get you ready for the summer! Heavy reverb and a resounding guitar chorus and whoops, yes sir that’s my wallet, no I don’t need it back, take everything and leave me this song.

I don’t ask for much and Gunns haven’t overthought things and to their merit it sounds pretty whiz bang dynamite in that free rolling live large way that Sures seem to do things. My only objection is the tone on that drum machine but I’ll look past it because on the whole it takes me to an easy place.

Actual useful info: Perth band, 7 inch single, pre-order on bandcamp.

Breathe In has some of the expected tropes of an Australian producer (read, “the Australian sound”™) including obligatory female feature vocalist delivering whispy vocal part but it’s probably not so far played out as to be problematic, especially since it’s actually a rather lovely vocal part indeed. He’s had a few musical moments over the past year that weren’t entirely his own including his rather excellent Godwolf remix from midway through the year but this one finally sees the Japanese Wallpaper moniker riding solo atop a repeat played soundcloud player for the first time this year. It’s a effort of extreme restraint that doesn’t allow itself a pavlovian drop where plenty of other Australian laptop-jockeys give in. A work of measure and metered patience, rich with atmospherics and blended organic/inorganic sounds.

So, in the same week that the a cashed up, major label distributed future classic won the indie label award, that (probbly just as cashed up) Flume cleansed the indie Beatguy award and that I discovered that my stomach doesn’t get on well with wasabi peas, try this: the unassuming but finely crafted handiwork of an up and coming Melbourne sort. He also gets extreme bonus points for cottoning me onto this not Australian but no less brilliant track below.

It’s not often I just drop a doozie without getting all verbose up in here but this is one of them days. Hear a new one from a new one, a band called Covers whose name has implications they might not be altogether pleased with if they’ve ambitions for a career rich with creative output. As far as I can tell this is their first song and it goes alright, right? They’re outta Melbourne and that’s as deep as my research has gone. Free download but I won’t be including their press shot as it features a picture of a bottom which I think it actually rather rude and I don’t care how rock and roll you are, I’m pretty sure noone wants to see the bottom of another human. Concluding sentence.