MUST LISTEN 061
Every week, we’ll be bringing you Must Listen: a series that's a compilation of rising artists along with songs that must be added to your everyday playlist. This week’s playlist consists of emerging acts like Good Morning TV, Pearl Sugar, and Richie Quake. Turn on, tune in, and zone out.
Good Morning TV delivers a sound on point with the name of the track, “Lethargic Way.” You can hear the guitars and drums lazily pluck and snap along, creating this awkward yet chill groove that has an interesting swing to it. Definitely a chiller for the upcoming summer months.
With a laid-back 80s-tinged indie-pop tune, Pearl Sugar gives us all those sweet syrupy vocals and woozy synths against a drum loop fit for any Tumblr queen or king playlist. The song’s floaty cloud-like aesthetic checks off all the boxes for a chill, moody banger.
City Park’s soft but upbeat and groovy delivery on “About To” is an infectious combination. The falsettos on the hook and guitar line are a nice change of pace as the song goes back and forth, and a Rhodes chord loop during the verses warms us up like a small fire for the hook. The ending breakdown of just vocals and guitar before it springs back into full swing is a nice switch for a well-composed indie pop/dance record.
Richie Quake’s vintage-inspired breakup song is equal parts smooth as it is sad. A reflection on affairs gone wrong, he proclaims “Never See You” as the song that catapults into a cloud of distortion and buildup of instrumentation just to settle into a soft buzz of static at the end.
Meanjin/Brisbane producer Sampology has collaborated with Allysha Joy on the stunning single “Suffer and Swim,” out via his own Middle Name Records imprint. Originally intended as a bright, soulful broken beat instrumental, made the night before a DJ set Sampology was playing in Sydney, he later called upon Allysha for a collaboration to fully develop the song to its potential. Following an introduction in Berlin through Noah Slee, Sampology also invited guitarist Beau Diako to collaborate on the track.
Dina Malual
Up and coming R&B artist Dina Malual delivers a fiery track about relationships and the dynamics that come into play when dealing with people with a history on her debut track “Choosy.” She comes across as confident and in charge throughout the song with her laid-back approach to vocals over the guitar and drum-heavy R&B swing.
Building upon her widely acclaimed releases to date, Jana’s new single "Joyride" is a song rooted in the notion of personal development, pulling together a sultry blend of lilting guitars, fluid bass lines, and crystalline vocals; lyrically part-inspired by the ending scene of the cult 1991 film, Thelma & Louise.
NJ-based Anotherboy (Anthony Vilardi) is a songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist. His latest single “For Your Eyes” is a new direction, incorporating electronic textures with an indie-pop tinge. This is a sonic portrait of love, heartbreak, and everything in between.
Jon Vinyl is a 23-year-old artist from Toronto, Ontario whose keen sense of emotion has given his listeners the ability to tap into their nostalgic moments of love, through a sound that has an air of sophistication and vulnerability. Production of strummed guitar chords and waving synths fall into a soft spot between R&B and Soul, which lay the perfect framework for Vinyl’s open and honest accounts of his own run-ins with love.