Bad Religion: Age Of Unreason

- Californian political punk legends Bad Religion are back with Age Of Unreason – astonishingly, their 17th studio album.

Fans of the band will be reassured within 30 seconds of album opener Chaos From Within that all the familiar Bad Religion ingredients are present – fast skate punk riffs, group harmonies, and a chorus that rhymes “existential” with “elemental”.

Drahla: Usless Coordinates

- With Useless Coordinates, the frenetic forthcoming debut album from Leed’s dark pop darlings Drahla, we are delivered, dazed and delighted, to the meeting place of jangly art rock, no-wave & pulsing post-punk. After teasing out a string of saccharine sweet, critically adored and instantly infectious singles since 2016, Drahla finally satisfies our cravings for a full-length release; one which is plump with musings on mysticism & modern anxieties.

Big Thief: UFOF

- My favourite Big Thief songs have names. They’re about a Paul, a Lorraine, a Matthew. On UFOF, the Brooklyn band’s frontwoman Adrienne Lemker gives us new characters to revel in, and it’s arguable they’re central to the record’s success.

Kedr Livanskiy: Your Need

- The breadth of Russia’s underground electronic scene makes delving into it a daunting task. DIY collectives like John’s Kingdom are borrowing from Western influences and try to bring worldwide attention to the largely neglected scene. It was on this label where Moscow’s Kedr Livanskiy first appeared in 2016 with her debut EP January Sun. Since then she has emerged as one of the faces of the bourgeoning scene.

Avina Vishnu: Transforma

- The new collaborative album Transforma by Avina Vishnu is out shortly on WeMe Records. Both of those names represent a new project from Heinrich Mueller (aka Gerald Donald, member of seminal electro/techno groups Drexciya and Dopplereffekt amongst others) and Aina (whose identity remains cryptic). On Transforma they meld synthetic sounds with more naturalistic ones to make an interesting album of ambience.

Sudan Protesters take to the streets

Hundreds of thousands of protesters have joined a sit-in outside Sudan's defence ministry to press the ruling military council to hand over power to a civilian administration.

The Declaration of Freedom and Change Forces (DFCF) alliance said on Thursday it has submitted a draft constitutional document containing its vision for the transitional period to the Transitional Military Council (TMC), but the TMC has shown no sign of willingness to relinquish ultimate authority.

Drone delivers emergency organ for transplant

A drone has delivered a kidney to a Baltimore hospital, where doctors then successfully transplanted the organ into a patient.

 

It was the first live test of the kidney-carrying aircraft, designed by doctors and engineers at the University of Maryland to help speed up the transfer of organs.

 

The test flight was a brief 4.8 kilometres and took just under 10 minutes, but Joseph Scalea, a University of Maryland Medical Centre transplant surgeon, said it represented the potential for many more lives to be saved.

Telstra boradband cable speeds set to double

Telstra cable broadband speeds are set to double for many customers across the country as the telco abandons its long-standing monthly fee to unlock maximum speeds.

Both Telstra and Optus throttle HFC cable broadband download speeds to 50 Mbps, unless customers pay an extra $20 or $30 per month respectively for a "Premium Speed Boost". This unlocks their cable's full potential of "up to 100 Mbps", in some cases reaching speeds of 120 Mbps.