- Jake Webb’s third studio album under the moniker Methyl Ethel, Triage, is his most polished and considered release yet. The suite of tracks embodies its title, taking stock of the experiences that comprise a coming-of-age, without ever slowing into static retrospection. Live, Methyl Ethel have gained a reputation for surrealist, guitar-driven, dreampop prime for festival punters, but the arrangements on the record have been demonstrably pored over by Webb, whose introduction of warm piano tones gives the release a glossy nostalgia.

- Seagull is the creation of Melbourne singer-songwriter Chris Bolton. An alt folk outfit that has been around for almost a decade and a half now, the project has become known for Botlon’s emotionally rich story-telling and detailed, atmospheric instrumentation. The typically melancholic mood of Seagull’s music is amplified on their new record, A Voice in the Ward, which Bolton penned a lot of the lyrics for while in a psych ward.

- For those with a keen eye, you’ll notice how similar of a style the Cash In The Dull Days album cover is to ones for Frenzal Rhomb, Totally Unicorn, and a slew of their striking, vivid, and slightly nauseating tour posters. Glenno of Chinese Burns Unit regularly puts his penmanship to use creating Australia’s punk iconography. The band's own new release is an unblemished contribution to the culture.

- The latest album from Xiu Xiu Girl with Basket of Fruit is an uncompromising record which highlights the relevance and the perpetuation of brutalities, particularly those affecting women, and ultimately meditates on our species impeding doom for failing to address these events adequately. It could possibly their most considered attempt at a cohesive conceptual album with a loosely interwoven symbolism running through it’s mostly cacophonous and rage filled storyline.

- Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe have not suddenly got “political”, as some have thought with the release of their latest compilation of new tunes. Pet Shop Boys have been political since they released Please in 1985, with songs about the rise of the yuppie class (Opportunities Let’s Make Lots Of Money) and the decay of the inner city and working class areas (Suburbia).

- 2019 began with some strange babble surrounding something called, “Better Oblivion Community Center”. Google searches would show planetary pamphlets with hieroglyphics and a hotline with a cultish recorded message. Fortunately, this was not the birth of another Scientology, but a new alt-folk band consisting of brilliant songwriters, Phoebe Bridgers and Conor Oberst. The former is the new indie-folk wunderkind, occupying the role Oberst held over a decade ago.

- I first came across Mira Calix via her 2008 release Elephant In The Room a bafflingly cool blend of classical instrumentation and electronics on Warp and an impressively forward-thinking outing, even given the label's reputation for pushing boundaries and picking leftfield winners early in their careers (like Aphex Twin). Fast forward ten years and Mira Calix has spent the intervening decade eschewing recorded music in favour of working with installations and...