Jaguar Jonze, Tex Crick and Rainbow Chan: Australia’s best new music for September

Jaguar Jonze, Courtney Barnett, Tex Crick and Elizabeth all have new tracks among the best songs of the month. Composite: Mia Mala McDonald/Georgia Wallace/Nettwerk Records/Jill Francis

Courtney Barnett – Different Now

For fans of: Sleater-Kinney, Chastity Belt, Parquet Courts

Courtney Barnett covers Chastity Belt’s Different Now in one of the best singles of the month. Photograph: Pooneh Ghana

This is one of those covers where the original, by American indie-rockers Chastity Belt, sounds like it was written with the artist who would later pay homage in mind. The song’s winsome philosophy – You’ll find in time / All the answers that you seek / Have been sitting there / Just waiting to be seen – would have fit perfectly amid the pandemic ruminations of Barnett’s last album. Barnett’s vocals are sweeter than those of Chastity Belt’s Julia Shapiro, but it is Warpaint drummer Stella Mozgawa who gives this new version an extra restless energy. – Andrew Stafford

For more: Barnett’s upcoming album End of the Day, featuring music from the documentary Anonymous Club, is out 8 September. In the meantime, listen to her 2021 album Things Take Time, Take Time.

Jaguar Jonze – Rebel Girl

For fans of: Ashnikko, Halsey

‘One to stomp around to’: a new cover by Jaguar Jonze. Photograph: Don Arnold/WireImage

More than 30 years on, Bikini Kill’s Rebel Girl remains a classic anthem of the riot grrrl movement – a rallying cry for sisterhood, solidarity and strength in the face of patriarchal control. Brisbane’s Jaguar Jonze gives it a modern industrial pop spin with spiky synths and thumping bass as a part of Broken Glass, a benefit compilation in support of reproductive rights. This is one to stomp around to; in the immortal words of Kathleen Hanna, taste the revolution. – Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen

For more: Listen to Jaguar Jonze’s 2022 album Bunny Mode.

Tex Crick – Easy Keepers

For fans of: Marlon Williams, Harry Nilsson, Leonard Cohen

Tex Crick’s songs waft in like a valley breeze. They are unfussy arrangements of piano and percussion, outmoded lullabies that feel as though they’ve sauntered into view from the 70s. Better known, perhaps, for his accompaniment work with everyone from Weyes Blood to Iggy Pop, Crick’s solo music wields a sleight of hand, his placid croon concealing great emotional rifts. On his new single, he casts himself – in typically self-effacing form – as a devoted lover accused of cheating. “I’ve got nothing to hide,” he repeats, warding off suspicion with a pained grin. It’s devotion disguised as a ditty. – Michael Sun

For more: Crick’s third album Sweet Dreamin’ is out 13 October.

Rainbow Chan – Seven Sisters

For fans of: Kelsey Lu, FKA twigs, Marcus Whale

Based on Hong Kong folklore … Rainbow Chan’s Seven Sisters. Photograph: Capsule48

The musician and interdisciplinary artist Rainbow Chan has consistently put out fantastic work, but her new song Seven Sisters certainly feels like the most ambitious music she’s released. Her sound remains dreamy and electronic, but here she gravitates towards more immediate pop pleasures. The song is based on a Hong Kong folktale in which a group of sisters collectively throw themselves into the ocean in rebellion against their arranged marriages. The gorgeous music video, shot in Hong Kong, extends this feminist myth beautifully. – Isabella Trimboli

For more: Chan’s new album The Bridal Lament is out in 2024. In the meantime, listen to her excellent 2019 record Pillar.

Elizabeth – Love is the Easiest Salvation

For fans of: Lana Del Rey, Ethel Cain

Glamorous, fatalistic, omniscient: Elizabeth’s new single is richly textured Photograph: Our Golden Friend

After a brief foray into pure pop with a trio of high-gloss singles last year, Brisbane-based artist Elizabeth returns to the narcotic, richly textured dream pop of her 2019 debut album The Wonderful World of Nature. Like the songs on that record, Love Is the Easiest Salvation is glamorous and pitch black in tone. But in a relative first for Elizabeth’s music, it’s written from a second-person perspective, thereby recasting Elizabeth as the fatalistic omniscient narrator of her own music. – Shaad D’Souza

For more: Listen to Elizabeth’s 2019 debut album The Wonderful World of Nature.

Suzie Stapleton and Dave Gahan – Mother of Earth

For fans of: The Gun Club, Nick Cave, Mark Lanegan

Although it’s credited to Depeche Mode’s Dave Gahan, this caramelised cover of Gun Club classic Mother of Earth was conceived, arranged and produced by under-appreciated Australian singer and songwriter Suzie Stapleton. Getting Gahan’s agreement was a coup, and he sings Jeffrey Lee Pierce’s junkie lament like a man who knows. This track opens an upcoming tribute album to Pierce’s songs that also features a spectacular Nick Cave and Debbie Harry duet as well as Lydia Lunch and others. If there’s any justice, it should also bring Stapleton to wider attention. – Andrew Stafford

For more: The tribute album, The Task Has Overwhelmed Us, is out 29 September, or listen to Stapleton’s excellent 2020 album We Are the Plague.

Rebel Yell – Kombat

For fans of: Boy Harsher, Marie Davidson, Geneva Jacuzzi

Rebel Yell’s Kombat: ‘Catastrophic and euphoric in equal measure.’ Photograph: Jordan Lochart

The latest single from Rebel Yell’s forthcoming record Desolation, Kombat is a pure, pummelling force. Harsh bass, unabating beats and glitchy vocals swarm to create a head-banging dance number. Catastrophic and euphoric in equal measure, it’s the kind of song you can imagine blaring from a boxing class in some dingy, dark warehouse. It reminds me of the great and angry early work of Canadian producer Marie Davidson, in particular her records Un Autre Voyage and Adieux Au Dancefloor. – Isabella Trimboli

For more: Desolation is out on 13 October.

Gauci – Brat

For fans of: Snail Mail, Hatchie, Miley Cyrus’s 7 Things

‘Roguish, mercurial’: Gauci’s new song Brat. Photograph: Elliott Lauren-Ryan

After a trickle of singles over the past six years referencing everything from new wave to Eurodance, the latest from Sydney trio Gauci bottles the rush of another seminal era in pop culture: the turn-of-the-millennium romcom. It was Julia Stiles who famously declared in 1999 that “mostly, I hate the way I don’t hate you”; the twinned forces of love and loathing remain potent in Gauci’s roguish, mercurial Brat. “I hate the way you wear your hat when we’re inside,” vocalist Antonia Gauci protests before immediately succumbing to the vertigo of infatuation. Roll the credits! – Michael Sun

For more: Listen to Gauci’s previous singles Irritating and Back 2 When.

Al Matcott – Summer’s Coming

For fans of: Kurt Vile, Osees

‘A warning at the end of an unseasonably warm winter’ … Summer’s Coming by Al Macott. Photograph: Rick Clifford

Mother nature has been watching humans destroy the earth for years, and she’s finally getting her revenge. On his topical new single, Melbourne singer-songwriter Al Matcott, with guest vocalist Kate Dillon, sings with steady despair and fury from nature’s perspective. Scuzzy garage guitars expand into wailing soundscapes as Matcott delivers a warning at the end of an unseasonably warm winter, with the worst yet to come: “You motherfuckers, you deserve what you get.” – Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen

For more: Al Matcott’s debut album Summer’s Coming is out in November.

700 Feel – Familiar Flavours

For fans of: Galcher Lustwerk, Erika de Casier, Jessy Lanza

Sydney’s 700 Feel, a duo made up of Jonny Hawkins and Juan Villamor, specialise in sexy, low-lit dance music that recalls the champagne-soaked minimal house of The Soft Pink Truth and Loraine James. Their latest single manages to meld disparate elements – heaving, engorged bass tones; a clanging, short-lived breakbeat; skittering footwork rhythms – while remaining straightforward and seductive. In other words: Hawkins and Villamor display a remarkable talent for controlling chaos. – Shaad D’Souza

For more: Listen to 700 Feel’s 2022 double-A-side 4 Ya Kiss / 4 Ya Bliss for 10 minutes of luxurious late-night ambience.