Songs To Brush Your Teeth To is our regular new music update where we bring you five songs to listen to each week – our suggestion is to do that while brushing your teeth so you make new music a good daily habit, but honestly, you can listen whenever you like. We won’t judge.
You can check out the playlist on Tidal, Spotify or You Tube.
Or Click here to see all of our recent new music recommendations
Read on for this week’s recommendations.
The Buoys – Kill You Back
Really excited to see The Buoys return with new music. Kill You Back leans more into a rockier sound with heavier guitars mixed with punchily delivered punk lyrics and more distorted early 90s inspired vocals. It’s great to see them testing out a new sound but managing to retain the catchy hooks (in this track that’s “hide from prying eyes”) and sense of fun that’s been so central to their work so far.
Speaking on the track Zoe shared:
“This was a super fun story to write. I came into the studio with this idea of being a ghost that was haunting my murderer and Kill You Back is what resulted! We hope you love it as much as we do!”
Find out more about The Buoys here.
Oscar the Wild – Sunrise
Sunrise opens with a blues inspired-groove and a little bit of swagger before falling into Oscar The Wild’s more familiar indie sound. They describe the track as “cosplay as an extrovert” and the musical inspo definitely parallels this before descending into the journey of a night out you never want to end.
“To me, Heaven is bed, some fairy smut and my phone on do not disturb… but Sunrise is about a rare night out that I enjoyed so much, I didn’t want it to end. It was a go hard and don’t go home kind of night, where dive bars and gay bars became a place of worship,” reminisces Ruby.
Find out more about Oscar The Wild here.
Madds Buckley – Sitting Pretty
Madds Buckley’s Sitting Pretty makes me both sad and angry. The storytelling, rooted in internalised homophobia and living up to familial pressure is one I wish didn’t still exist, but sadly it’s still the heart of too many queer people’s journeys. Musically, it’s a yearning pop-folk song. Emotionally it’s “this is why we still need Pride Month”. Madds beautifully articulates the aching of knowing you have to leave part of yourself behind to live the future you really want to.
Madds shares, ““Sitting Pretty” continues the story of Dog, a young lesbian who finds herself in the very situation Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck Babe” warns of. Dog, resigned to live with her conservative parents and be their ‘perfect daughter’, mourns what her better half could be doing in the meantime. By choosing to be the housewife, she gets a stable, comfortable future. By being the perfect daughter, she’ll have to stay sitting pretty for the photo. And Dog, true to her name, will be stuck following the same command for the rest of her life: “sit pretty!”.
Find out more about Madds Buckley here.
Daine – PQC
The latest release from hyperpop sensation Daine gives a taste of what to expect on their forthcoming album. I loved its more nuanced musical take, bringing in folk and gentle rock elements along with the pop/electronica sounds you’d expect. Alongside this more open music style is a more vulnerable form of songwriting. It’s not soft and gentle like the above Madds Buckley track but it touches on many similar themes: being misunderstood, being vulnerable and ultimately having to let parts of yourself or your life go to be true to yourself.
Find out more about Daine here.
Matilda Pearl – Sweet
You may have noticed this week’s list is extra super duper queer! And Matilda Pearl’s Sweet, the first song she wrote after coming out, the first song she wrote about falling in love with a girl, is the perfect fit.
It captures that obsession of a first love so perfectly. The sweetness but also the overpowering nature of it, and Matilda articulates that so beautifully in this well crafted indie pop track. Also, the lyrics “I could finish when she talks” deserves its own special mention.
Find out more about Matilda Pearl here.
Molly Martin – Freaks
So this week features six tracks. And there’s a couple of reasons for this. The main one being I miscounted and was overly committed to all six before I realised, but also, when I did realise, I knew I wanted to keep both international tracks (this one and Madds Buckley) on the list and I wasn’t really cool about taking an Aussie artist off the list to do that, so here we are.
Molly Martin released queer joy-filled album Accidental Popstar this week, and Freaks is one of my favourite tracks on the album. It’s disco, funk rhythm is one you can’t help but dance along too and it just has an incredible celebratory energy. I adore it (and the whole album).
