Gessafelstein has that same ability to utilise thick sounds and silence in a way so as that a song can sound chunky and airy at the same time and I bloody well reckon this Newcastle kid functions similarly. Constant rythm dance music that’s probably going to be key to your next functional workout, y’all need to be on this now before it’s too late. Hell, it’s probably already too late if I’m telling you about it, you know the end is nigh when I’m your first port of call for techno.

Look. There are two truths at play here. There’s the Truth, that this is the first song from Slum Sociable’s second EP. Their first was really good and I wrote about it with fairly abstract allusions and it was one of my favourite Australia releases from 2013. That’s the first Truth. The second truth however, is that this is the debut single from Slum Sociable, which is the truth inasmuch as it’s the debut single through Liberation and having since cleansed that lovely back catalogue from the internet, I guess for all intents and purposes, this is the Truth. The game must be played and its not the fault of artist or label, its more our own fault for demanding that everything be sparkling brand new and placing discovery at the forefront of the process rather than simply the music. That preamble now said, the music is strong in this one. The act is a two piece and between the two of them they’ve constructed something with synthetic harp sounds, heavily reverbed vocals and a whole bunch of harmonised vocal padding. The feel of the track is overall fairly washed out with reverb and backing vocal but it still feels quite sharp because of that vocal sitting higher in the mix and a drum track that feels far less filtered then the rest of the song. The sound is good, the game for hereafter for the Slumdogs is going to be the crafting of those melodies. Gonna be a good one to watch!

Here’s a young producer vocalist duo that are seemingly split over Seattle and Canberra. Sucked in to whichever one’s in Canberra, AM I RIGHT!? Nah you’re ok Canberra, you have the war memorial and infrastructure and affordable housing and Questacom which has not aged favourably against my timeless nostalgia. Parissa’s vocal is gorgeous and vulnerable, drawing me in the same way that the Schilling sisters do on Swimming tracks. The production is structurally clever, calmly padding the verses and announcing the choruses with intensity. There’s a couple of different tricks in the play book so that ‘Thru’ is high energy, upper end synths layering across the track’s conclusion while ‘Young’ is a calm, slow burner relying more on acoustic guitar lines. Reprieve is bright and textural, pitches untouched underneath Parissa’s vocal. I don’t know why I’m bothering describe all this, you’ll make your own judgements when you hear the music and I expect they’ll be rather favourable if you’d kindly make your way over to the duo’s bandcamp. You can pick up their four tracker for $7 – about $2 more than Thom Yorke’s most recent record, but $9 less than it’s actually worth, despite what streaming services are trying to tell us about market value. Take me back to the good old day’s where Sanity would sell you a jewel case for a casual $33, now that was an industry!

Japanese Wallpaper’s recent remix package was a decent excuse to hear some of the usual suspects put another, expectedly solid remix into the universe. The canvas provided by Jap Wall was typically easy to work with – low BPM, lots of unobtrusive sounds and a pretty vocal. Sable did a goodie of course and while we’re here, this is as good an excuse as any to cop an ear full of his [not for long] unreleased Ed Sheeran remix that the likes of Nina Las Vegas and Slumberjack have slipped into Triple J mixes. UV Boi did an unmistakably UV Boi remix of that JW + Pepa Knight track, all disjointed and slathered in 808s. Producer/Mixer/Masterer Andrei Eremin has cut his teeth on remixing Brightly, Milwaukee Banks and thunders out a dark rumbling version of Between Friends.

My unashamed favourite of the bunch however, is this Anatole remix of Between Friends. I was so impressed listening to this one as a demo that I immediately demanded that Anatole sign upon the dotted line and suddenly I was releasing the next Anatole record via my own record label TEEF, though more on that later. This remix strips out a lot of the smaller twinkly synth sections and replaces them with hand percussion, real life trumpet, real life clarinet, real life piano, real life strings and lots of super real life sounds. This is the sort of remix Son Lux produces and there isn’t any higher praise I can deliver.

You can collect the entire package via the JW bandcamp with all proceeds going to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, just like our friends the Smith Street Band this week.

I’ve never written about King Giz before because I just haven’t ok, that’s all there is to it. I see it as a badge of honour in that I’ve managed to ignore a very good band over a solid four records or so now. To be fair, all those records have dropped in the space of two years, so it’s not the achievement it first sounds like, but nonetheless I’m willing to admit that mistakes have been made. Now I’m here, I’m listening and I’m going to start with this newest record and if it works out for me ok, move ever backward through the catalogue. I caught the outro of this one on the radio and thought that maybe D.D Dumbo had released a new track without warning but again, another mistake. Lots of egg on my face this afternoon! My word! Anyway, turns out more than one Australian act can play a flute so we’ve got ourselves a few minutes with King Gizbo.

Hot Water is lifted from their most recent effort I’m In Your Mind Fuzz, out since October last year.