Brisbane band Dumb Things have a new single out called ‘Instant Coffee‘ and it certainly has an immediacy in terms of bittersweet hooks, jangly guitars and a gentle surge of energy that effortlessly lifts this way above generic indie fare. Once it hits the chorus the guitar notes spiral off like chemtrails as the rhythm section takes a free range approach. Lovely stuff! Singer, songwriter ..read more

Another massive year of listening to new albums in this 15th year of Doubtful Sounds. As always, it’s been a pretty amazing 12 months for new albums. A deluge of sorts, from a myriad of genres and a noticeable proclivity for many artists to expand their sound and explore other genres, often within a song. Read on to check out our favourite indie, alt-country, psych ..read more

The Fragments are an indie rock band from Sydney, originally active from 2001 to 2006, and reformed in 2022. While active, The Fragments only put out two singles! So, in 2019, they released ‘Transporter Volume I’ and ‘Transporter Volume II’, a double album compilation of music recorded in the 2000s. The two volumes are available on Bandcamp and streaming services. In 2022, the band set up a mobile recording studio in a ..read more

On the new single and across the new album Like That, the Melbourne group Cool Sounds‘ usual jangle-pop sparkle has been supercharged by a disco-glam stomp, making for their most immediate record yet. Like That finds a bright pop-funk sweet spot between Ian Dury & the Blockheads, Hot Chip and 80s Francois K mixes. On this track you can also hear the enigmatic twitch and jerk of ..read more

Dumb Things first made a marker on the wider Australian indie-pop scene with their 2019 album Time Again and now the Brisbane/Meanjin group are back with the first single and title-track from their forthcoming 2024 LP Self Help (Coolin’ By Sound). The song’s wonderful laidback shuffle and strum harks back to the heyday of Flying Nun guitar pop and their trans-Tasman contemporaries such as The ..read more

So much to love about this new single from Grimson, the project of Berlin-based Swedish/American songwriter Aiden Berglund. You can hear the rich pop art psych explosion of Beach Boys, Harry Nilsson and more contemporary progenitors of the genre such as High Llamas and Field Music in ‘Household‘, the latest in a string of singles. Heavy, rhythmic and supremely melodic piano bounces through the track ..read more

For fans of Talk Talk, Aldous Harding, Tortoise, Sam Gendel Faye Webster embraces a slow mellifluous drift on her new single ‘Lifetime‘. The dreamy sway of the song is beautifully augmented by relaxed post-rock drums, a jazz and cosmic country looseness and a wandering poignancy as she sings the repeating refrain “In a lifetime…” The companion music video was directed by Kyle Ng of Brain Dead. In February ..read more

Perth-based New Zealand songwriter Damien Binder has just released his fifth solo album Bright Side. It’s a widescreen indie pop-rock vista populated by sparkling guitar lines, the warm glow of synths and Binder’s astute take on the world around him. Damien first came to fame in the late 80s and through the 90s on the alternative rock scene in Auckland, NZ, as frontman for the ..read more

NSW songwriter and filmmaker (WAITING: The Van Duren Story) Wade Jackson has released his new single ‘Limelight’ (Broken Stone Records), his first new music since his 2020 album Sensationalized. ‘Limelight‘ emerges twitching, writhing, pulsing and electronically convulsing. Like Bowie and Suicide in hi-fidelity 4K, ‘Limelight’ is hypnotic, with waning vintage synths and tribal-esque drums, the latter evolving from the coal freight trains passing through regional NSW. The middle ..read more

Definitive edition of their 1985 studio album Low-Life that includes the original album on 180g vinyl LP and CD – remastered. A second CD of unreleased audio, x2DVDs of live performances from 1984 & 1985, plus a hardback book.  The vinyl album and CD are both wrapped in the original tracing-paper sleeve – not available since the very first pressing, and the first time ever for the ..read more