Tia Gostelow, RVG and Daine: Australia’s best new music for March

(L-R): Romy Vager from RVG, Tia Gostelow and Body Type. Composite: Toni Wilkinson/Izzie Austin/MACAMI

Jonnine – Portrait

For fans of: Grouper, Vashti Bunyan, Carla dal Forno

The HTRK vocalist’s latest solo offering is Maritz, a ghostly, austere album of fragments, comprised solely of scavenged instruments – including a plastic recorder, a broken metronome, and a homemade glockenspiel. One of the record’s standouts is the spectral Portrait, a loose, spare ballad about painting someone on a winter’s day. The vocals loop to haunting effect and the lyrics are simple but impressionistic – bringing images of purple paint splashed on to canvas and prayer to the fore. – Isabella Trimboli

For more: Listen to Jonnine’s Maritz and HTRK’s latest album, Rhinestones

Tia Gostelow – Spring to Life

Tia Gostelow: stepping confidently into mainstream pop. Photograph: Macami

For fans of: Hatchie, Ruby Fields, Cyndi Lauper

The instrumental touches in Spring to Life – piano, congas, a louche and luscious sax break – had me checking the decade for a moment. Had I nodded off and woken up in 1985? It’s a big stylistic shift – and a pleasing development – for Indigenous singer-songwriter Tia Gostelow.. Far from retro, Gostelow sounds totally modern as she shakes off her indie-rock roots and steps confidently into this effortless piece of mainstream pop. – Andrew Stafford

For more: Gostelow plays dates in NSW (Shellharbour Rocks, 18 March), Victoria (Peninsula Picnic, 25 March) and Queensland (The Long Sunset, 29 April)

1300 – Drunk in Luv

For fans of: Brockhampton, PinkPantheress, The Kid Laroi

1300 make music for car chases. Over just a handful of releases and their accompanying music videos, the five-piece rap collective have forged an entire cinematic universe of smoking guns and blood-pumping heists, name-checking any and everything – Muhammad Ali, Steve Jobs, Smashmouth – in their skittish, frenzied race to the top. Drunk in Luv might feel like a change in course – an R&B cut woozier and slower than their usual heart attack. But it’s no less febrile: the lyrics, in Korean and English, detail a dizzying, all-consuming crush. Even an action movie needs a love interest. – Michael Sun

For more: Their Valentine’s Day EP, titled <3, is out now

1300’s new single Drunk in Luv: a change in course, though no less febrile. Photograph: Jordan Munns

RVG – Nothing Really Changes

For fans of: Divinyls, Joy Division, The Cure

Romy Vager is one of Australia’s finest and most underrated contemporary songwriters. There’s an unadorned frankness in her lyrics that, paired with her arresting vocals, makes for an emotional listening experience. The Melbourne band’s first proper single since 2020 builds on a simple, plodding riff, increasing in intensity before expanding into a synth-soaked landscape, as Vager details the inner conflict of missing someone who’s been bad to you. It’s classic RVG, both blistering and intimate, cerebral and straight from the gut. – Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen

For more: RVG’s third album, Brain Worms, is out 2 June

One of Australia’s finest songwriters: Romy Vager and her band, RVG. Photograph: Izzie Austin

Deuce – Breathe

For fans of: Julia Jacklin, Dick Diver, Sharon Van Etten

Melbourne couple Kayleigh Heydon and Curtis Wakeling make intimate, melancholic guitar pop under the moniker Deuce. Their latest single Breathe – the first cut off their new album Wild Type – is an effortless exhale, chronicling the ease and relief of a couple coming together after a long absence. With jangly guitars, hazy synths, Heydon’s delicate vocals, and a plaintive saxophone outro (courtesy of Snowy Band’s Liam Halliwell), everything falls together seamlessly. – Isabella Trimboli

For more: Listen to Deuce’s 2021 debut, self-titled record

‘The relief of a couple coming together after a long absence’: Deuce’s new track Breathe. Photograph: Kayleigh Heydon

Body Type – Miss the World

For fans of: Sleater-Kinney, Bikini Kill, The Linda Lindas

Less than a year after their debut album dropped, Sydney’s Body Type returns with a self-confessed Covid song, but it’s nowhere near as bleak as that sounds. This infectious three-minute pop-punk track is a love letter to community and the band itself: “Miss the world but mostly I miss B-O-D-Y-T-Y-P-E,” Sophie McComish sings, building towards a delicious climax. Elsewhere, the lyrics have a touch of Kathleen Hanna: “She’s a violent preteen anarchist / your oxymoronic protagonist”. There’s a new brightness here that’s intoxicating. – Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen

For more: Body Type’s second album, Expired Candy, is out 2 June

Floodlights – Lessons Learnt

For fans of: Fontaines D.C., Scott & Charlene’s Wedding, Shame

Floodlights expand into new, even strange territory on their single Lessons Learnt. Photograph: Ian Laidlaw

Although their early records fit squarely into the mould set by 2010s Melbourne indie groups like Twerps and Dick Diver, the latest singles from Melbourne four-piece Floodlights point toward a sound that’s more expansive, even a little strange. Lessons Learnt, the latest track from their second album Painting of My Time, finds frontman Louis Parsons delivering ominous, agitated spoken word over harmonica and driving guitars, eventually breaking into a yell as the track crests. – Shaad D’Souza

For more: Painting of My Time is out 21 April. Until then, listen to their single Human, or their debut album From A View released in 2020

Daine – Portal

For fans of: Charli XCX, 100 Gecs, Porter Robinson

Counting Charli XCX and 100 Gecs among her collaborators, Daine is a certified hyperpop star – though that label is a little knotty. Photograph: Diego Campomar

Hyperpop is a knotty term – a double-edged sword that can propel an artist to internet fame as easily as it can box them into the bubblegum bleeps and bloops which have become the public sound of a far more expansive genre. “It was never really hyperpop, for me,” Daine said in a 2021 interview; on Portal, they stretch the limits of that label until they snap. “I’m gone,” they declare over a midwestern emo riff hijacked by a confetti blast of electro screeches – a paean to pure chaos. – Michael Sun

For more: Daine’s new EP Shapeless is out now

Cable Ties – Perfect Client

For fans of: Sleater-Kinney, X-Ray Spex, Eddy Current Suppression Ring

Cable Ties singer Jenny McKechnie has said that Perfect Client is about her frustration at an underfunded health care system’s inadequate response to a friend’s mental health crisis. It helps to know that, because McKechnie’s vocal is a high-pitched, mostly indecipherable wail of rage (in the best punk tradition, of course). Behind her, bass player Nick Brown and drummer Shauna Boyle lay down a monster groove. If it’s any indication of what’s to come, this Melbourne power trio’s third album will be music to break shit to. – Andrew Stafford

A ‘wail of rage’: Cable Ties’ new song Perfect Client. Photograph: Craig Martine

For more: The band play their first home town gig this year on 5 March as part of Brunswick music festival, as well as the Gum Ball festival in Belford, NSW, happening 21-23 April

Civic – Fly Song

For fans of: Turnstile, Cable Ties, Private Function

Melbourne five-piece Civic made a name for themselves with a taut, embodied combination of hardcore punk, 70s pub rock and ultra-melodic garage. All three elements of their sound work in perfect lockstep on their sublime second album Taken By Force – as made clear by Fly Song, a grimy, pummelling highlight. Vocalist Jim McCullough forces out a scream as Matt Blach’s drums ratchet up in speed, the whole thing peaking with a brief but frenetic guitar solo. – Shaad D’Souza

For more: Taken By Force is out now. Their debut album Future Forecast was released in 2021