New Music Friday #10 – 21.07.2017

Collating the best new music that dropped on this Friday, this is New Music Friday! Let AAA Backstage curate your week’s end with total jams.

Noble Oak – Out There

Ever since Bon Iver struck pure gold with his debut ten years ago, the indie-folk scene has been playing catch up. There’s been knock offs and lacklustre copy cats, but the ones that standout and continue to reinvent are truly outstanding—Noble Oak is one of those artists. Awarding merits in a whole other ball park, Out There, the artist’s latest tasting of his new album, is near faultless atmospheric indie music. It’s daring and beautiful—striking a marvellous balance of ingenuity and nostalgia. ‘Collapsing Together’, released this August, is going to be nothing short of special.

Albert Salt – Glass Plains

Australian artists who continue to find small pockets of unique qualities in electronic music never cease to please me. Albert Salt, a Melbourne solo trip-hop artist, is one to be praised for his remarkable blend of genres and innate ability to transcend all of them at the same time. Glass Plains is, at the same time, bouncy and moody; hysterically deep production underlays a pure pop song. Mind the glorious saxophone—performed by Alex Lahey and Ollie Whitehead, mind you—Glass Plains is written as a commentary on premeditating and performing actions without proper thought.

Sloan Peterson – Rats

Australia’s new lady of punk is Sloan Peterson—born Joe Jackson—and Rats solidifies this Sydney artist’s clenching hold on frenetic and magical punk moments. Striking gold with previous single, 105, Sloan Peterson is back to clear the air about any misconceptions people had about this artist not already slaying. As she sings, “You’re not alone here,” underneath the veneer of the crisp black and white of the film clip, it emphasises Sloan Peterson’s vintage radiation of femme punk.

Neon Tetra – Reflections

I’ll say this much: Reflections by Neon Tetra is the best film clip I’ve seen this year. With that out of the way, we can now focus on this marvellous group of Adelaide-born electro-funk musicians. Reflections is a crisp interpretation of delightful synth-pop music that is so playful it hurts. The interplay here of pulsing synths and that killer saxophone make for an endearing combination of musical delight. Talk about that warming and booming vocal performance, too.

PRESSYES – Touch The Sky

Okay, well, Touch The Sky is everything I wanted Tame Impala’s ‘Currents’ to be. The lush tapestry of textures PRESSYES orchestrate on this confident and ambitious flavour of psychedelic-pop music is bold, but it totally works. Much like any good psychedelic music, Touch The Sky transports the listener and projects vivid envisions of PRESSYES’ other world. The artist’s sparkling sense of psych music is refreshing and presents a new void in the genre that’s been dominated by a select few artists and musicians for some years.