Further Listening:

5. Hubcaps Have Nothing But Well Wishes For You

Hailing from Gadigal Land/Sydney, Hubcaps is the ambient-pop project of multi-instrumentalist and producer Ella Mosley. A proper bedroom-pop affair, Ella recorded the debut Hubcaps album, Singing & Songing, over a three-year period spent layering, looping and generally immersing herself in the possibilities home recording can offer. The record will see the light of day next week when it is released via Dinosaur City, and this week Ella further premiered it with her new single, Water Wells Wishing Wells.

A song that began as just guitar and vocals, as with so much that Hubcaps does, Water Wells Wishing Wells evolved into many forms before it was finally finished, as Ella explains, “I tried performing the track at three or so different speeds, eventually deciding on this one. The backing vocals were very fun to write. I altered them multiple times, adding more and more before deciding which ones worked best as counter melodies“. Opening with the gorgeous slow-core twang of the waltzing guitar line, the track morphs and mutates via wavering organs, splashy tambourine-like beats and layer-upon-layer of keening melancholic vocals. The whole thing is a delightful exercise in escapism, for three meditative minutes it seems to transport you somewhere else, gurgling through your ears as if you’ve dived head-first into a crisp winter stream. While music can sometimes feel derivative, as if its creator is seeking to produce it for someone else, here Hubcaps seem to be creating for the sheer joy of it, making music that’s intriguing, entirely their own and in a subtle kind of way, very exciting indeed.

Singing & Songing is out November 17th via Dinosaur City. For more information on Hubcaps visit https://linktr.ee/hubcaps_444.

4. Oh Machine What Shiny Teeth You Have

Tipped for big things since they appeared in the prestigious NME 100 at the start of the year, the musical world seems rather excited about Teeth Machine. Despite releasing just one single, the band have already graced most of the usual online publications, been played across the alternative airwaves and are set to close the year opening for The Murder Capital on their UK tour. With so much praise coming their way, there’s already a certain pressure to whatever the band do, and thankfully on their new single Shiny, released this week via Ra-Ra Rock, they seem to have thrived rather than wilted beneath it.

The track had a fairly long gestation, the musical sketches first formed in the summer of 2022, paired with some lyrics found in an old notebook, that seemed to strike a chord as lead vocalist Gray Rimmer explains, “I’d been thinking a lot about the possibilities associated with forgiveness at that time, the way in which reality is regenerated when we make the small, silent decisions to choose to see the best in each other”. Opening with a wash of distant electronics, Shiny seems to slowly come into focus like an analogue radio station emerging from the static, the propulsive guitar slides into earshot, before the vocals, initially poised and precise enter, initially they seem almost unfocused before they suddenly snap into clarity, “here’s the issue: I don’t think about the future when I’m with you, ‘cos I don’t need to”. From there the track ebbs and flows, as skittering drum rhythms and distant saxophone flourishes add some of the textures of post-rock bringing to mind the likes of Do Make Say Think or Tortoise. They might arrive with a lot of talk and a lot of expectation, yet thankfully Teeth Machine don’t seem to have noticed, given the space to flourish and grow they seem like a band ready to shine.

Shiny is out now via Ra-Ra Rok. For more information on Teeth Machine visit https://linktr.ee/teethmachine.

3. Practice Some Self Help And Listen To Dumb Things

Hailing from Brisbane/Meanjin, Dumb Things appeared on these pages back in 2019 around the release of their second album, and second of that year, Time Again. If that hinted at a band in a rush to share their musical wares with the world, the subsequent four years of radio silence might suggest otherwise. Thankfully things started to shift this week with the release of a brand new single, Self Help, the title track of their upcoming album of the same name, which will be released via the acclaimed label, Coolin’ By Sound.

Described by the band as, “a jangly ode to self-improvement”, Self Help is a scene setter for the album to follow, and its depiction of, “the quest for self-improvement during a low romantic ebb”. Instantly Self Help feels like classic Dumb Things, that mixture of bright-jangling choruses and downbeat, thoughtful vocals that underpins so much of the best Antipodean indie-pop from Allo Darlin’ to The Goon Sax. As the guitars meander and the surprisingly tasteful harmonica drifts in and out, the lyrics go in search of growth, and hit both progress and roadblocks along the way, “all this sunburnt weather makes me think we should get back together forever, not all progress is progressive but I’m doing better”. For all the talk of self-help, this is a song that still seems to be seeking external validation, our protagonist might be keen to put the work in yet his mind keeps wandering back to external desires, to a battered heart that refuses to move on, “I know all dreams don’t come true but I miss you dear, I do”. The return of Dumb Things contrastingly intelligent take on pop music might have taken a lot longer than expected, thankfully on this evidence it was well worth the wait.

Self Help is out now via Coolin’ By Sound. For more information on Self Help visit https://linktr.ee/dumbthings.

2. There Ain’t No Better Man Than A Spielmann

Spielmann is the Leeds-based solo project of Ben Lewis, who in his own words, “has already been around the block”. After a decade spent as a DJ, gig promoter and, “someone else’s bandmate”, Ben recently decided to step out on his own, and Spielmann was born. 2023 has been a breakout year, with a string of well-received singles and mounting acclaim for his one-man live show, which has seen him play at Greenman, The Great Escape and Blue Dot and receive reviews as confusing as, “Harry Styles for 6 Music Dads” and “Brandon Flowers auditioning for Phoenix Nights“. With live dates in the diary and plans for something longer on the horizon, this week Spielmann shared his latest single, A Better Man.

Inspired by the New York scene of the noughties, A Better Man tells the tale of, “the kind of guy you’d tell your friends about”, inspired by, “sitting in a lot of rooms with a lot of tedious men, not saying I’m not one of them“. Atop a scattering electronic rhythm, Spielmann’s vocals take on a similar observational self-deprecating tone to The National’s Matt Berninger or The Walkmen’s Hamilton Leithauser, as he muses on those who feel the need to express an opinion on everything, even if they possess considerably more entitlement than knowledge. The whole thing builds to an arena-sized dancefloor-filling chorus, at the meeting point of Future Islands and The War On Drugs, where our protagonist tries one final attempt at grace and acceptance, and falls flat on his face once more, “I was just trying to be the kind of guy you tell your friends about, so I got it wrong, well I guess that’s their opinion”. A melting pot of influences from the years that led Spielmann to this moment, his take on contemporary pop feels wonderfully thought through, at once wholehearted, honest and with a tongue-firmly-in-a-cheek, it’s not just better, it’s rather wonderful.

A Better Man is out now. For more information on Spielmann visit https://linktr.ee/spielmannsongs.

1. You’re Going To Like The New Adwaith Track I Promise

Things have been going rather well for Adwaith following the release of 2022’s Bato Mato, with a high-profile slot at Glastonbury, followed by a KEXP session and walking off with a thoroughly deserved victory at the Welsh Music Prize. Now make no mistake, I like all of Adwaith’s music, but I always had a soft spot for those fragile, spectral sketches they made before they became the all-conquering heroes of the Welsh-language musical world, and thankfully it seems they agreed. The band recently returned to old ways of working, Hollie Singer and Gwenllian Anthony jamming together in their bedrooms, taking fragments of ideas, working and re-working them, letting the piece evolve organically, following the music wherever it takes them. That’s exactly what they did with their new single Addo, released this week via Libertino Records, as the first taster of their third album, which we’re reliably informed will arrive next year.

While Addo’s conception might be a trip back into Adwaith’s roots, its final form shows just how far they’ve come. Recorded at Black Bay Studios in the Outer Hebrides, the band felt it needed a certain guitar flourish, so they turned to a recent touring mate, in the shape of Manic Street Preachers’ James Dean Bradfield. The result of this meeting of past and future is a track Adwaith describe as being, “about relationships in life that drain you”, reflecting on, “caring deeply for someone self destructive who doesn’t care about themselves, and how when you’re involved in these relationships, it distorts your view of the world and the people around you”. The track enters on a bass line straight out of the early 90s, coming across like the middle ground of the Pixies and Hole, before the initial low-end pulse slides into squalling guitars and a soaring chorus. Just as think you’ve got it pegged as a stadium-sized belter though, the track breaks down into a more reflective mode, nodding to the folk-tinged minimalism of the band’s earliest material. While the track has moments of lurking in the shadows of difficult times, it ultimately refuses to be defined by them, casting them aside in favour of radical positivity, with lyrics translating as, “by the time the sun wakes up, my heart will be full, will you promise, will you promise, never to come back to me”. Now while my love for all things Adwaith is well documented, this is arguably the finest balance they’ve struck to date, all the intricacy and intimacy of where they came from is present, yet so is the vast ambition they showed on Bato Mato. Adwaith are a band determined to reach new heights, to keep striving for whatever is coming around the corner, and crucially doing it without ever losing track of who they are, and frankly, music doesn’t get much more exciting than that.

Addo is out now via Libertino Records. For more information on Adwaith visit https://www.adwaithmusic.com/

Header photo is Adwaith by Aled Llywelyn