Ten new tracks hit the Discovery Playlist this week on Spotify and Apple Music, including the two premieres we shared earlier. Our track of the week comes from Annie Hamilton, whose new single “chainmail” arrived on Wednesday as the first taste of her third album, due early next year.
Hamilton wrote it on a solo trip to Paris, locked in an apartment with her phone switched off and a couple of synths and guitars set up on the kitchen table, before finishing it in Naarm/Melbourne with co-producer Alice Ivy. It opens on a lopsided synth line and moves through dark, glassy guitars before breaking into a defiant chorus about a toxic relationship she can’t quite give up. She calls her world “sunshine gothic”, and the track has a celestial pull to it, slow and orbiting, like something being drawn in by gravity. It follows on from 2024’s stop and smell the lightning, and you can be sure that her new music will stay unflinchingly honest. Do check out the video as well.
If you’re in London, Hamilton plays an intimate headline show at The Blue Basement, Third Man Records on Sunday, November 8. Tickets HERE.
From one Annie to another: Cambridge-based New Yorker Annie Dressner is back with “Hate Being By Myself”, the second single from her fifth album Trying To Be Cool, due February 12. It’s a jangly, 90s-leaning pop song about those days when you want company but can’t get out of bed, and when you finally have people around you, you want them gone again. Dressner points to the after-school MTV of her youth as the touchstone, and you can hear Suzanne Vega and early Cranberries in it. The super cute video has her daughter playing a young Annie alongside her, which suits the song nicely.
Dressner is funding the album through Kickstarter, where pre-orders have got it a little over halfway. It needs to be fully funded by November 3, so if the single lands with you, get on board here.
Sydney’s The Buoys release their second album Concrete Cowboy today, and “Pretenders” is one of its standout songs. We spoke to lead singer Zoe Catterall about the album and that track in particular. You can read the interview HERE. Catterall describes “Pretenders” as “an anthem for those one-sided relationships, where you do everything in your power to make it work, and you’re met with nothing but a brick wall.” The band plays in Sydney tonight at Crowbar, and will be supporting Foo Fighters in Newcastle on November 12.
Hockey Dad singer Zach Stephenson has one more single out before his debut solo album I Needed To Hear Me Say It arrives next Friday, October 30. “Jeans In Japan” is a duet with Maisie Everett of The Belair Lip Bombs. Zach jokes that it’s about finding yourself through travel, in the way of “a hipster lad who won’t shut up about finding all the cool local shit in Japan”. It’s a lovely, restrained track, and Everett’s voice sits beautifully against Stephenson’s. Clearly they worked well together in the studio too, because she stayed on and sang backing vocals for the rest of the album.
Fanny Lumsden has a fourth single out from her new album Traditions, and this time Paul Kelly sings with her. Lumsden wrote “By The River” after touring with Kelly and singing their duet “The Pretty Place” with him every night. The song describes the place she goes in her head to feel calm, and she wrote it in about ten minutes in the Peak District after the tour. Kelly kept his comment on point: “Rivers hold memories. Always a joy to sing with Fanny.”
Switching it up now with Sydney four-piece Facelift. “Vertigo” is only their second single and it’s straight-ahead pop punk: a big, bouncy chorus, a verse stripped back to bass and vocals, and a final hook that keeps coming back until the whole room is singing along. Under all that, it’s about going back to something you know is bad for you. Vocalist Sarah Bonnet started writing it about bad habits, then realised partway through that most of the lines also fit a relationship, so she’s happy for you to hear it either way. This track encapsulates everything we love about pop-punk.
We’re always happy to see something new from Melbourne’s Hydra Fashion Week, whose releases tend to be creative and enigmatic. “Half Circle” is their first new original music since their 2024 debut Serpent Season One. Guitarist Ju Shung (Spike Fuck, Wet Kiss) plays on it, and the sound is tighter and grittier, something the band are calling “sacred-hyper-punk”. Whatever the label, we are all for it, and it’s good to have them back. They’re marking the release with an unplugged set at The Tramway Hotel tomorrow afternoon, Saturday October 24.
Also released today is “Film Noir” from Haute & Freddy. We caught them at The Great Escape in Brighton earlier this year, and they were so much fun. They are heading to Australia in March 2027 – so catch them if you can. We’ve also added premieres from Michael Whittle (“Again We Wake on Fire”) and Leila (“Close To Me”).
Catch all the new music updated every Friday on Apple Music:
and on Spotify:
Here’s the complete list of new additions this week:
Annie Hamilton “chainmail”
Annie Dressner “Hate Being By Myself”
The Buoys “Pretenders”
Zach Stephenson “Jeans in Japan” (feat. Maisie Everett)
Fanny Lumsden “By The River” (feat. Paul Kelly)
Facelift “Vertigo”
Hydra Fashion Week “Half Circle”
Haute & Freddy “Film Noir”
Michael Whittle “Again We Wake on Fire” [Exclusive Video Premiere]
Leila “Close To Me” [Exclusive EP Premiere]
Header image credit: Macami
