Georgia Maq, Tame Impala, Augie March: Australia’s best new music for January

Royal Chant – Sowing Doubt in Magnetic Fields

For fans of: The Verve, Slowdive, the Warlocks

Port Macquarie two-piece Royal Chant are the type of perennially on-tour rock band that no longer exists outside of rock docos about Midnight Oil. They’ve been tirelessly working the pubs and clubs of every cranny of Australia while spitting out excellent albums without any lapse in quality or spirit. Sowing Doubt in Magnetic Fields is a mighty shoegaze epic, with huge synths and guitars draped across a dreamy vocal, echoed to infinity and mixed as if performed from atop a mountain. Across eight albums, Royal Chant have proven they can tackle any style in the wider rock canon – and this more expansive sound is a very welcome juncture. Let’s hope they stay on the mountain awhile.

For more: The band’s entire catalogue is worthy of your time. Just dive in.

Augie March – Clay

For fans of: Holly Throsby, Antony and the Johnsons, Leonard Cohen

Glenn Richards weaves the most delicate melodies on which to drop his weighty lyrical concepts: on love, life, loss and all the other big Ls that have concerned poets for millennia. Augie March has never betrayed a sense of their own time, with ornate arrangements, antiquated language and songs that slowly unfurl as if being pedalled out through a dusty pianola roll. The basic tracks for Clay were recorded in January 2020, before being shelved for all the obvious considerations. Throughout 2021, Richards pieced together the rest of the song, which he confessed had “been pretty much in the ground as far as I was concerned” before he revisited it. The result is a masterful next chapter for one of Australia’s true treasures.

For more: Augie March are touring their debut record, Sunset Studies, in March, in celebration of its 20th anniversary. New album Bloodsport & Porn is out now.

Tame Impala – No Choice

For fans of: Late Night Sessions, Phoenix, Ty Segall

Recorded during the sessions for The Slow Rush and held back due to reasons of taste or timing, it’s not surprising that No Choice slots firmly into the album it was born of: another slice of space-R&B that finds Kevin Parker floating further still into the pop realm, now as much a student of Donna Summer as Donovan. With Parker’s favourite flange setting skipping across the entire track, and guitar solos so fuzzed out they resemble vuvuzelas, this is three-and-a-half minutes of smoked-out bliss. Detractors may point out this is more of the same; fans will love it for this very fact.

For more: The Slow Rush deluxe edition is out 18 February.

Georgia Maq – Joe Rogan

For fans of: Robyn, Doja Cat, Camp Cope

Since a very public romantic breakup (at least in indie rock circles), Camp Cope’s Georgia Maq has made no secret of her “historically bad taste”, as she puts it. The song Joe Rogan is not an ode to the divisive bobble-headed podcaster, but a slight on the specific types of men who hero-worship him: who lecture women during first dates; who are turned off by women with opinions; who mansplain perceived inadequacies via lengthy, angry text messages (one of which appears to be captured on the cover art to this single). Music-wise, this is sparkling synth-driven pop, much in the vein of Maq’s solo debut Pleaser, with a sharp message – “there is nothing more dangerous than a man who thinks consent is lame” – and a chorus of friends echoing Maq’s bad taste via a series of voice messages. It’s both fun and frightening.

For more: Listen to 2021 single Someone Stranger, with Alice Ivy.

Babe Rainbow – Smash the Machine

For fans of: Treetops, Donovan, MGMT

Babe Rainbow deal sun-drenched, lysergic-dripping psychedelia from the back of their touring VW bus, the type of music that casts a bloodshot eye back at the 1960s without ever slipping into parody or pastiche. Smash the Machine goes heavy on the flange and social commentary, bemoaning the ever-whirling machines that seem to be taking bigger bites out of our everyday lives. Like label mates King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, the Byron band are maddeningly prolific; this single follows four quick-fire quality albums. A little more whimsical than the tunes on last year’s Changing Colours, this is the perfect breath of wild sea air to inhale as you enter the new year.

For more: Listen to Changing Colours, or 2019’s Today album.

Alannah Russack – Places You Love

For fans of: The Hummingbirds, Jodi Phillis, Love Positions

During the late 1980s, Sydney’s the Hummingbirds were part of a pre-grunge movement that saw acts like the Clouds, Ratcat and the Falling Joys brighten the corners of the country with gleeful pop music: breezy but punchy, developed in garages and small pubs. Vocalist Alannah Russack is still peeling off joyous tunes in the same vein, and fans of her familiar sound will instantly fall for Places You Love – the crystalline guitars, the immediate, effortless melody, and her clear, spirited lilt are all in full flight. Like many songs written in the past few years, this one is about perseverance in the face of adversity – with a hefty dose of nostalgia thrown in for good measure.

For more: Russack’s album As Memories Pass Each Other will be out soon.

Blackbirds FC – Transport Planes

For fans of: Flying Nun, the Church, late 80s the Saints

Transport Planes is a song of liminal states, which drifts like a daydream transporting you back to the days of 1980s FM radio, with Jeremy Gronow’s voice a dead ringer for Steve Kilbey, a chorus that will stick in your brain for days, perfectly placed backing vocals, references to truckers and Tasmania and transport planes, all driven stick-shift by guitar tones so bright and sunny you need 15+ fluoro zinc to protect you (this is an 80s daydream, remember).

For more: Listen to previous single, Island of the Dogs.

Hoodoo Gurus – Carry On

For fans of: The Sunnyboys, Cheap Trick, Redd Kross

Sounding suspiciously vital after 40 years, Hoodoo Gurus’ latest single leaps from the speakers, an immediate power-pop anthem that joins a run of recent one-off singles which suggest that maybe Faulkner and co are gearing up for album number 10 – their first in 12 years. The calls for resilience in the chorus make for a fitting pandemic rallying cry, but this song was actually written pre-Covid (although annexed to a fitting video showing frontline workers struggling with the demands). Hoodoo Gurus are still one of this country’s most underrated gems.

For more: Check out recent singles Get Out Of Dodge, and Hung Out to Dry.

Wilsn – You Know Better

For fans of: Amy Winehouse, Gin Wigmore, Lanie Lane

There’s no shortage of smoky vocalists who have cemented themselves in the post-Amy Winehouse neo soul world; students of Ella Fitzgerald, Etta James and Billie Holiday. Ivy League Records’ latest signee, Wilsn, stands above the pack with You Know Better, which sports a truly jaw-dropping vocal and one hell of a killer chorus, making for the type of rare tune that already sounds like a standard. Horn blasts and propulsion drums help set the mood, but it is the singular talent at the centre of things that makes this more than just another diet-Winehouse offering.

For more: Wilsn plays 10 February at the Vanguard, Sydney and 19 February at Lulie Tavern, Melbourne.

D Henry Fenton – Ruby (Days Gone By)

For fans of: Weddings Parties Anything, Ryan Adams

With a voice that has shades of Ryan Adams and Roy Orbison in its pure yearning magic, and a story about a heartbreaking custody disrupt, Ruby (Days Gone By) is both a simple, loving ode to a daughter not seen enough and a dark shot at an embittered ex-lover. The first strums sound unmistakably like To Her Door before the track breaks into its own emotive tale of fractured family life and a protagonist that cannot seem to get out of his own way.

For more: Check out 2019 album Autumn Sweet for more heartbreakers.