Another week, another chance to dive into the depths of New Music Friday
Another Friday, another batch of bangers, heartbreakers, and existential slow burns to soundtrack your weekend spirals (or recoveries — we don’t judge).
From Naarm’s intimate bedrooms to Geelong’s sticky stages, here’s what’s worth your ears this week.
ixaras – Do U Like Girls?
Brisbane’s ixaras isn’t interested in half-truths. On her latest single ‘Do U Like Girls?’, she dives headfirst into questions that don’t come with neat answers — peeling back the layers of identity, perception, and queerness with a sharp pen and even sharper hooks.
It’s her most personal release to date, and you can hear it. The track hums with pop-punk urgency — jagged guitars, whip-smart lyricism, and that blend of vulnerability and bravado that only comes from writing your truth before fully living it. There’s joy here, too. Even in the confusion, Ixaras finds defiance, catharsis, and a voice that doesn’t flinch.
Currently riding high on her first headline tour (with multiple dates already sold out), ixaras is stepping up to the plate loud, proud, and entirely on her own terms. ‘Do U Like Girls?’ isn’t just a question. It’s a declaration.
FELIVAND – this very thing
FELIVAND has a gift for making songs that feel like conversations you’re having with yourself at 2am — private, raw, and eerily clear. On ‘this very thing’, she leans all the way into that late-night clarity, unpacking the kind of longing that lives in the body before it reaches the mind.
Built around gritty guitar textures and a glowing sense of restraint, the track pulses gently, refusing to over-explain itself. It’s not flashy — it’s honest. FELIVAND doesn’t beg for connection; she demands alignment. The result is a track that aches quietly but decisively, walking the line between tenderness and refusal.
Chris McClenney’s jazz-rooted production adds both swagger and space, giving the track that off-centre warmth FELIVAND has made her own. You can dance to it. You can cry to it. You can walk home alone with it playing in your headphones and feel like the main character — no compromises needed.
Jon Ann – Kings Cup
If you’ve ever found yourself shouting over a speaker at a house party, beer in hand, trying to locate your dignity and your ex at the same time — Jon Ann have captured that chaos with precision. ‘Kings Cup’ is sweaty, sharp and gloriously self-aware.
Adelaide’s resident pub-punks have carved a lane that’s as cathartic as it is unfiltered. The track hits hard and fast, but not without purpose — beneath the bravado is a clear-eyed takedown of party culture’s worst traits: performative coolness, toxic vibes, and that one guy who still won’t leave the kitchen.
There’s feminism here, sure — but it’s punk feminism: loud, funny, and covered in glitter and bruises. ‘Kings Cup’ isn’t just a soundtrack to being messy — it’s a celebration of claiming your space, even when it smells like goon and regret.
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith – Stare Into Me
With each new single from GUSH, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith is building a world that feels tactile and close — like light bouncing off skin, or breath caught between two people in conversation. On ‘Stare Into Me’, she turns that intimacy into movement.
The track is gentle but propulsive, balancing danceable undercurrents with melodic lines that stretch and shimmer. There’s a humanness to her production here — every modular flicker and vocal loop feels like it’s reaching out to touch something.
It’s part of her larger practice: making electronic music that doesn’t just think, but feels. The influence of her synesthesia and obsession with “the third thing” — the energy between objects or people — is all over this. ‘Stare Into Me’ is less about looking at someone, more about being seen completely, even briefly. A body. A breath. A moment.
Sunbeam Sound Machine – Waterfall (Strange Gravity)
Sunbeam Sound Machine returns with a track that feels like it’s been growing in the soil for a while — patiently waiting for the right season to bloom. ‘Waterfall (Strange Gravity)’ is rich, textured, and shaped by both intention and accident.
Built from a rediscovered loop and coloured by field recordings gathered along Melbourne creek trails, the track feels lush without overreaching. You can hear the leaves in it. The running water. The quiet. Nick Sowersby lets it all breathe, layering synths and rhythm with a naturalist’s ear.
There’s a softness to the production, but also momentum — the kind that makes you want to walk longer than you meant to, just to stay in the song’s orbit. If this is any indication of what’s to come on Double Magic, we’re in for a record that honours both place and pace.
Abby Wallace – Atlantic Blue
Abby Wallace has always had a voice that sits just beneath the skin. On ‘Atlantic Blue’, she dives even deeper — both sonically and emotionally — offering a track that’s as much about release as it is about restraint.
The production is clean but expansive, a kind of gentle cinematic folk-pop that gives her room to exhale. The lyrics are deeply interior: yearning, fearful, hopeful — all at once. There’s contradiction here, and that’s the point. It’s about the ache of wanting to be known while fearing what that actually means.
The chorus feels like a moment of weightlessness. Not joy, exactly — more like clarity. And the metaphor of the ocean doesn’t feel tired here. It feels real. Abby isn’t writing poetry for effect — she’s using it to survive. That difference is felt in every note.
Dirty Wasabi – HOME
Geelong’s Dirty Wasabi make the kind of music that smells like sweat, salt, and last night’s regret. Their debut single ‘HOME’ doesn’t waste time on niceties — it throws you straight into a riff-heavy, post-grunge stomp with a smile and a black eye.
It’s a confident debut: fun, messy, and totally unbothered by genre loyalty. Dirty Wasabi call themselves a “drunky punky boy band,” and for once that descriptor nails it. You get surfy choruses, chunky guitars, and a rhythm section that hits like it’s been waiting to be let loose.
There’s nothing overthought here — and that’s exactly the point. ‘HOME’ is for car rides with the windows down, for bar floors you’ll regret dancing on, for friends who scream the chorus even though they don’t know the words. It’s not clean, but it’s honest.
Worm Girlz – Get Ugly
Worm Girlz aren’t here to play nice — they’re here to get real. With their latest single ‘Get Ugly’, the Meanjin alt-rock crew deliver a blistering, glitter-soaked middle finger to beauty standards and the shame machine they ride in on. It’s punchy, proud, and completely unfiltered — just like their live shows, which have become a hub for catharsis, chaos, and community.
Timed for Pride Month, the release is both a celebration and a battle cry. “While LGBTQIA+ rights are being threatened across the world, we felt compelled to shed the shame and unapologetically be loud and proud,” the band shares — and that energy bleeds into every note.
‘Get Ugly’ is a queer anthem built for mosh pits and mirror pep talks alike. It’s sweaty, sharp, and refreshingly human — the kind of track that reminds you showing up as yourself is the most radical move of all.
Placement – Insect (Album)
Placement’s Insect is not for casual listening — and thank god for that. It’s an album that burrows under the skin, tracing the edge between decay and beauty, human and insect, dread and desire.
There’s a bleakness here, sure — existential terror wrapped in spindly guitars and narrative vocals — but also moments of real light. ‘More a Curse’ and ‘New Disease’ stand out, offering sharp edges that somehow feel soft in the right places. It’s a record that invites discomfort, but also insists on reflection.
Placement don’t offer solutions. What they do offer is a sonic mirror: fractured, textured, and undeniably human. In a time of hyper-stimulation and algorithmic comfort, Insect is a beautiful confrontation — and one of the most compelling experimental records to come out of Adelaide in years.
For more new music – check out our mixtape.
