Can’t make Too bold a statement about an at with only one song to their name but this feels like a band who have chosen their cognomen wisely. Whether it’s the optimistic warmth of a love interest or the overwhelming press of bodies in a crowd, im hearing all sorts of titular Ultracrush sounds whenever I hit go on this track of theirs ‘Swimming’. It is yes, the first track they’ve ever released. They’re a Sydney five piece out of Camperdown only one song in and I’m wholly in their corner. The song itself signposts some Newcastle lineage and reportedly they’re from Lake Mac and Central Coast, but that’s all besides the point. Hit play here and then Let’s Talk.

As someone with a pair of kids who just holidayed outside daylights savings time, I’ll tell you here and now, I’m no fan of a time change. Getting up pre-dawn each day? That blows and I recommend it to no one. The multiple time changes in this song though, well they’re just fine by me. This is a band who channel the heady nostalgia of Bored Nothing, the airy whimsy of Beach House, the groove of Radio Dept and fill them with small town specifics to make something genuinely moving. I even found myself looking up the Council Street fig trees because the lyrical energy drew me in real close and I couldn’t not know after that.

Bonus: here’s the vaporwave remix of the track you neither knew you needed nor had.

They’ve got an EP on the way but given I can’t find a date for it I reckon we’re looking at 2019. Well here’s this- Ultracrush are my favourite new Sydney band.

One of my favourite records of this year dropped way back in January. That was the debut Tram Cops full length even in my dreams, a record that moved Michael Vince Moin from ‘Melbourne musician making weirdo acoustica-jazz’ to ‘one of the most creative nodes in Australian music rn’. It was the realization of the ideas from several records that Moin had dropped under the name Laurence, like William, Andromeda (2013), It’s Real (2014) and Happy Town (2015). Dropping these hyperlinks in, I’m actually starting to think that maybe Moin is the artist I’ve written about more than any other on Sound Doctrine over its eight years of life? He’d be neck and neck with Oscar Key Sung and Tim Fitz [music] but interestingly by contrast to both, he’s never tasted any big name-making success, including in the wake of ‘even in my dreams’.

He entered a new phase in the second half of this year, releasing singles from his next album Not Forever. This second single follows on from October’s ‘this is it’ and let me tell ya, you can almost blow past that first in excitement for this second because it’s the one you’ve held out for. Gentle guitar parts baking in a Summer haze and horns that fade in as if from the distance, both lounging atop percussion that’s drier than Coober Pedy (look it up, you’ll find that’s quite dry indeed). Mikey’s a heck of a guitarist but he also has the capacity to produce guitar sounds so that they sound damn gorgeous. That’s the first and final third of the track but in those middle bars it’s spry, trotting guitars. As ever, you’ll find old mate messing with the format and gluing pieces of songs together but, as ever, somehow it doesn’t feel disjointed.

There’s something extremely moving in the way that Moin grabs simple refrains and drives sentimentality into them like a tent peg into dry festival earth. The lyricism is often sparse and simple but it nails me more often than not. Album’s out November 9 (his first through a label, on ripper tiny Melbourne indie Neat Lawn) and you can secure yourself a copy here.

First off, shoutouts to anyone who feels confident enough in what they’re making that they can keep it down to two minutes and eleven seconds. It takes a certain nerve to hear what you’ve made as a two minute record and think ‘that oughta do it I reckon. That’s done’. But look, May, you kept this one in the microwave not a minute too long because what you’ve come out with is a cooked through record that needs little else. We got ourselves some piano and uhhhh… what’s that thing over the top? You know, kinda sounds the way a professional massage feels and the way a renaissance painting looks? Oh that’s your voice, sure ok, makes sense. Born with it? Right yeah, I kinda get that. I was born relatively good looking so that’s kinda my ‘gift’ you know? Noone remarks on it because I can be self-conscious but needless to say, I know what it’s like. You might even say we’re the same, me the 2012 award winning blog man and you, the human who posses a vocal that could force lava back into a volcano.

That’s enough then, why don’t you all just head right on below and hit play on this one and if you wanna leave her a review of your own, head over to her Unearthed profile. Maybe you too hear a little of Emma Louise’s Everything Lilac (shoutouts Harrison Kefford for drawing this excellent connection), I know I certainly do.

Declan ‘Sweetboi’ Byrne from my workspace counts GGM’s 2017 single ‘Phone Keys Wallet‘ as his favourite track of twenty seventeen. He hasn’t explicitly said that to me recently but it seems like something he’d probably say don’t you think? He sure loved that track.

Me though? I didn’t even know who this band was until just now on the arrival of ‘Little Heart’. I reckon I’m close to mirroring Declan’s feelings when it comes to this new one that’s barreled me over so completely. It has all the charm of seminal Australian indie-pop like The Lucksmiths or the localized affection of a record like The Starry Field‘s Back On The Milks. It’s homemade syrup in a worn down can and it tastes better than anything you’ll find on Woollies shelves.

If you want to crank the cute up a few levels further, check out the video they just dropped for the track.