Some great Aussie albums and songs have come out recently! Along with, um, less recent albums that we’ve only lately discovered! Open up your earholes and have a listen.

Astral Debris by Georgia Fields

I had to clarify for Stephanie that this is not faint praise — Aims is one of my favourite albums of all time, full of perfect alt-pop and layered sounds and general perfection. And Fields’ Astral Debris feels the same way, covering electronica to pure pop, from the joyous to the bittersweet.

I saw Fields perform two songs at an event a couple of years back, and fell in love with her voice and songwriting forever. Such a musical cinnamon roll.

The Past Beats Inside Me Like A Second Heartbeat by Urthboy

I already gave this album a plug once in a linkspam title, but whatevs, it’s just really good. Admittedly, “male feminist Aussie hip hop by a white guy” is a low bar in several directions, but I think it stands up, as an album about women, about history, about community and family. It also features a bunch of guest artists, all women, whose solo work I’m now happily exploring.

It also has not one but two songs about the evils of gentrification, so well on brand for No Award.

Kiss My Apocalypse by Abbe May

This is not a new album, but I only discovered it a few months ago, and I’ve had it on high rotation ever since. May’s previous projects were all rock bordering on country and/or folk; with Kiss My Apocalypse she took a left turn into electronica bordering on rock. I have a secret goal of making a Mad Max: Fury Road vid to every single song on this album (it’s only taken me over a year to get two-thirds of the way through clipping that damn movie!). It’s full of angry driving music and feminism and water metaphors.

Finally, an individual song:

“Click Clack (Front N Back)” by Coda Conduct

Like, on the one hand, I have strong reservations about any video that features twerking by people who aren’t African-American. On the other hand, it is 2016 and I can be a fan of problematic things, especially if they combine visual puns with actual puns and also a sweet, sweet ’90s aesthetic.