Songs To Brush Your Teeth To (19th January)
Time for this week’s new music recommendations. I’ve written the opening to this post about 5 times. Partly I’m procrastinating. The list isn’t finished and it’s due tomorrow. Partly I’m struggling to succinctly sum up the problem, which is, that I had just too much good music to choose from this week.
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I’m currently down to 7 songs from a strong choice of 12. I’ve had to take an artist I love off the list and I made the difficult decision to remove an artist because their work just wasn’t widely available. I don’t love either of these choices, but I know they’re the right ones. The artist I love was Jill Scott, Pressha is a great song, a fine example of classic r n b that you should listen to. On a different week I’d include it here, but today, I chose to prioritise an up and coming artist over an established one.
I’m going to be a little more vague about the other artist as I’m going to feature them eventually in a different way, and rather than focus on what they don’t have, I will be focusing on what they do. I also want to find a regular way to shine a spotlight on acts like this, those that don’t have their work on mainstream streaming platforms, but this isn’t it. Any good suggestions of how to do this perhaps once a month? Best of Bandcamp? Spotted on Soundcloud? Please yell out!
Anyway, on to the list. I have two tracks I solidly know I want to be here and I’m hoping as I start, the others will fall into place. Theme of this week: trusting the universe! (Was that last week’s theme too?)
Bella Mackenzie, Jake Banfield – Tombstone Desperado
First up is Bella Mackenzie’s and Jake Banfield’s duet Tombstone Desperado.
Bella’s stunning vocals that open this track really drew me in. They absolutely soar above the swaggering classic country rock background. It has attitude but also a pureness to it. Cutting her teeth across regional Australia in her teenage years, Bella has honed her unique sound to become one of Australian country music’s rising stars.
Speaking on Tombstone Desperado, Bella shares:
“This track can be interpreted in so many ways but personally, this song makes me feel powerful by recognising we’ve all made mistakes, some worse than others, but how you move through and past these, is what makes you the strongest. Jake Banfield is such a vocal powerhouse and on stage that I can’t wait to perform this with him live on tour.”
Find out more about Bella Mackenzie here.
Parissa Tosif – River (گلریز)
I haven’t been able to get this track off my mind this week. River (گلریز) taken from Parissa’s upcoming LP I have this Memory of You (out March 26) speaks of displacement, of a heritage never visited or fully known. This theme has rippled around me over the days since first hearing the track. Of course, it’s especially poignant with what is currently happening in Iran (Parissa is Iranian-Australian). Yet beyond that, I saw The Last Dinner Party live this week and as I was listening to them performing Gjuha, a track built around similar themes, I found my mind drawn back to Parissa’s song. I also, just yesterday, started reading I Who Have Never Known Men, where the narrator struggles to find her place having grown up in a world where she has no heritage, no shared history with the other women around her.
River (گلریز)’ is a soft track that wonderfully emulates memory’s whispers and I adore the way it’s just crept into my life this week, in the same way those half-remembered or never quite known elements of your history do.
I think this has brought me to a place where I know the next two tracks:
Find out more about Parissa Tosif here.
The Sooks – Take it Slow
This one makes me nostalgic for ‘home’. While they are a Eora/Sydney based band The Sooks just have such a sound of the northern English bands I grew up with. It’s nowhere near as deep as the connections spoken of in the previous song but there’s something about this sound that will always be a thread to ‘home’ for me.
It’s a sound I don’t often hear done well in Australia but with Take it Slow they’ve really nailed the subtle soft edges an indie track needs to work. It’s the gentleness of the breezy guitars that take it from rock to something different, that essence of what indie was. It’s also earnest, in the way that these bands were 20 years ago when they burst onto what was a very different music scene.
Find out more about The Sooks here.
Djanaba + Hylander – Buster
So this one made it here more for its differences to River (گلریز) than its similarities.
Djanaba’s unapologetic electro pop track busted doesn’t creep but explodes into your earbuds. It fully embodied Djanaba’s uninhibited, empowering, ‘I’m here to take up space’ attitude to her music. As a proud Queer Bundjalung woman she’s carving her path as a pop star very much on her own terms. I love that she isn’t shying away from what she wants to share, both musically and lyrically. It’s bold and this track doesn’t bend for anyone.
Speaking on the record she shares: “I’ve been wanting to write a song that captures how little patience I have left for men who do the bare minimum, breathe, and somehow still expect more than the women doing twice the work. This song is my way of calling that behaviour out for what it is – and calling those men exactly what they are: DIRTY LITTLE DOGS.”
Find out more about Djanaba here.
Sofia Gobbi – Your Mom
The final spot this week goes to Sofia Gobbi. I was really taken with Sofia’s debut album Bigger Man which released this week.
Final teaser single Your Mom is a great attitude-filled high energy pop record. It’s self confident, fun and very reminiscent of early 00’s pop starlets. It’s satirical, tongue in cheek and female centric.
Speaking about Your Mom, Sofia elaborates, “This song is about when people see you as the ‘nice one’ and assume you’re after something serious, even though you just want to have a bit of fun.” Adding, “There are so many hook-up anthems written by guys about keeping things casual and not catching feelings. I thought, why not write the same kind of song, but from a woman’s perspective?”
Anyway, trusting the universe worked. Enjoy this week’s tracks.!
Find out more about Sofia Gobbi here.
All our Songs To Brush Your Teeth to can be found on our playlist for new music:
Apple Music and Spotify versions of the playlist here.
Let us know in the comments which track is your fave!