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Pomaa – Wide Eyed: Painfully Sober, Sonically Celestial Indie Dream Pop

Posted on 11 October 2023

With a transfixingly astral vocal register layering harmonies over the retro reverb-swathed synths, Pomaa’s latest single, Wide Eyed, bridges the gap between Siouxsie and the Banshees and cutting-edge outfits in the vein of Wolf Alice and Desperate Journalist while allowing you to linger in a kaleidoscope of dreamy psych-pop tones.

From the first immersion, the artist’s unique talents in blending the spirit of her own hypnotically authentic expression with the mixer of era-spanning signatures from shoegaze, post-punk, psych, pop and indie to pour the perfect sonic mocktail becomes immediately apparent.

Through Wide Eyed, Pomaa narrates the isolation of being the only sober person at a party; starved of connection and wracked with unshakable sensations which embed the loneliness of growing at a different pace to everyone around you.

Wide Eyed will be available to stream on all major platforms from October 11; stream it on Spotify & SoundCloud. If you like what you hear, stay tuned for the release of her debut EP, Bridge to Somewhere, which will drop on November 15.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Tylar Smith dropped a nostalgia atom bomb with his retro jazz-pop hit, ONE MORE CHANCE

Posted on 29 September 2023

Get in the Doo Wop swing with Tylar Smith’s jazz-pop nostalgia atom bomb of a single, ONE MORE CHANCE. The award-winning Australian-born singer’s reverence for retro pop and old-fashioned soul, powerful vocal lines that could start a Rockabilly riot and his ability to spin a powerful narrative over his melodies that will hit your ears like candy has put him on the right path towards his dream of becoming an international recording artist.

With the timeless appeal of ONE MORE CHANCE and music fans increasing their proclivities towards nostalgia, the young artist, who started cutting his teeth in the music industry before his teens, is sure to make an ever-lasting impression with his debut EP, REMINISCENT, which has been crafted over the last 12 months in collaboration with a US Grammy-Nominated producer and songwriter.

ONE MORE CHANCE will reach the airwaves on September 29; hear it on SoundCloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Adelaide’s hottest post-grunge pioneers, The Yellow Wallpaper, prescribed volatile vindication in the chaos of their sophomore single, Run Your Mouth

Posted on 28 September 2023

The Yellow Wallpaper made an eternal impression with their debut single, Tell Me to Beg; their spiky attitude punctuated the ensnaring sphere of artful alt-rock, but that was nothing compared to the volition that went into as much overdrive as the guitars in their sophomore single, Run Your Mouth.

Veering more towards the 90s Seattle sound but still sinking their teeth into post-rock production styles, Run Your Mouth is a kaleidoscopic vortex of vindication. In a time when it feels like there’s a cacophony of vacuous contempt at every turn, every bark is worse than the bite and every bitch is in heat, sinking into the single, which delivers an exposition of the shallowness of the hypocrisy of public perception and the psychological effects, is as close to utopia as our dystopic epoch will allow.

Following the sold-out launch show of their debut single in mid-2023, the band is priming to do it all again by launching the single to their hometown crowd in Adelaide.

Run Your Mouth was officially released on September 22nd; stream it on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Bree Gregory cut right to the emotional core with her orchestral ballad, See You Soon

Posted on 22 September 2023

The Adelaide singer-songwriter Bree Gregory captured the bitter-sweetness of impassioned goodbyes and the beauty of uninhibited vulnerability with her latest orchestrally arranged piano pop ballad, See You Soon, which strips the sonorous production right back to her vocals, piano keys and a string quartet.

Between the cutting crescendos and the steady strides in her dynamic vocal register that carries the same sense of beguile as Adele, See You Soon cuts you right to the emotional core.

Moving away from her RnB soul sound, which saw her peak at number 4 in the top 10 AMRAP charts with her single, Waiting, was a bold move, but discernibly, her talents lend themselves efficaciously well to more than one genre. We can’t wait to see where this Billboard & Grammy-worthy exposition of viscerally warm raw emotion takes her. Even greater successes are surely in the pipeline.

See You Soon will debut on September 22; stream it on SoundCloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Timothy and the Apocalypse took his listeners to alt-electro ‘Nirvana’ with his latest release

Posted on 15 September 2023

The Australian alt-electronica augmenter Timothy and the Apocalypse took his sound to new celestial heights with the release of his latest single, Nirvana; the merit of it is almost enough to dissipate the synonymousness between Kurt Cobain and the track title.

With the opening vocals resounding with a spiritually ceremonial timbre across the lush layers of reverb, the artist and producer set the bar transcendently high from the intro, and still managed to rise above it with the shoegazey dream-pop guitars which bring introduce the solid backbeat that affixes a strong gravitational pull to the ever-ascending melodic lines.

Midway through the track comes a euphoric uplift, which defies all expectations of Timothy and the Apocalypse. Since 2021, he’s held dominion over the ambient trip-hop scene and dominated the associated playlists. With Nirvana, he broke new ground by progressing his new release into a track that could fill a floor and rhythmically drive it into fervour. Amalgams of IDM and deep house don’t come much more electrifying than this.

Stream Nirvana and the THOLEMOD Remix, which hit the airwaves on September 8th via Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Sentia released the most seductive synthscape of the summer with ‘Make You’

Posted on 11 September 2023

Sentia’s latest single, Make You, kisses you through a cosmic installation of smooth analog synth-swathed rock grooves, comprised of velveteen guitars and basslines that funk up the seductively seminal reimagining of alt-rock just enough to put you on a proggy star-roving plateau of pure euphonic appreciation.

If you gave Editors the sex appeal of Alex Cameron, you still wouldn’t come close to what Sentia have crafted in their hit that encompasses the kind of carnal desire which leaves your psyche rife with indecision as the prospect of taking a chance leaves the line between right and wrong obscured with wanton lust.

With their consistently evolving discography, the iconic anomalies of the Australian alternative scene are increasingly hard to pin down, but considering that all their synthscapes are underpinned with sheer sonic beguile, fool on you if you want to force them into a pigeonhole choked with uninspired assimilators.

Make You hit the airwaves on August 18; stream it on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Matangi Devi euphonised Vedic astrology in her single, Saraswati Mantra 12 Names of Saraswati

Posted on 4 September 2023

Ancient Indian folk, contemporary art folk, and Vedic astrology converged in the divinity of the debut album, Shakti Ma, from the up-and-coming New Age singer-songwriter, Matangi Devi. The mantra-focused seminal single, Saraswati Mantra 12 Names of Saraswati, is a beguiling exhibition of her deep sense of spirituality, effortlessly projected through her ever-ascending vocal lines and instrumentals which amalgamate to offer a transcendental experience your soul won’t be quick to forget.

To prepare for the album, the Australian composer and performer spent 17 years as a hatha yoga teacher and studied the Sanskrit language with the world-famous teacher, Dr. Lekhmani Tripathi. After acknowledging the profound positive impact of the vibrations of mantras, including how they awake cosmic energy that lingers within us all, she set out to share the divine nature of our universe and enable others to reach enlightenment as a soul-affirming songstress whose music could salve the sickness that this modern age has imparted.

Stream Shakti Ma in full on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Mario Vayne put the power in pop rock with his debut single, Baby

Posted on 1 September 2023

If you take your classic rock with a pop twist, the debut single, Baby, from the Queensland-hailing singer-songwriter and guitar virtuoso Mario Vayne efficaciously hits the anthemic spot.  There isn’t a stadium on Earth that Vayne couldn’t fill with his boundlessly powerful vocals that could charge a national grid.

With as much passion as I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing by Aerosmith, the serpentine rhythmics of White Snake, and Journey-esque melodic hooks, Baby is a triumphant Tour De Force for the solo artist who cut his teeth fronting various rock outfits in the UK and Australia. Between the 70s rock nostalgia and contemporary production stylings lingers Vayne’s tendency to make everything he vocally touches turn to euphonic gold. If this isn’t the start of a promising solo career, I don’t know what is.

Stream Baby on Spotify now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Grace Woodroofe dialled the up beguile her latest single, You Call That Love?

Posted on 30 August 2023

PJ Harvey will want to eat her heart out to the latest orchestrally raw single, You Call That Love? by the Australian songstress, Grace Woodroofe, who always dials the beguile up until it is off the scale.

With the ‘Fever’ of Peggy Lee, the dark gyrating rhythmics of Nick Cave’s Red Right Hand and arcane layers of etherealism lending themselves to the artful scintillation, the Perth-born, Melbourne-based artist blended light and dark to prove that emboldenment is always a possibility after your power has been nefariously stripped away by someone who needed to weaken you to gain control.

With the line “You call that love? How does it feel to call that love?” worked into the mix, lyrical blows scarcely punch harder. Even if her abuser doesn’t acknowledge how she efficaciously disempowered them by holding a mirror to them for a stark reflection of their sociopathy, the rest of the world is listening and learning.

After supporting Ben Harper on the Italian leg of his tour, Woodroofe primed herself to exhibit her freshly honed sound after an eight-year release break; You Call That Love is only a taste of the commanding alchemy that is set to come in the form of her upcoming sophomore LP release. In a bid to help more women find their voice following emotional abuse, she has also written an essay to accompany her latest single.

You Call That Love was officially released on August 17th; stream it on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Sahara CyberStars illuminated the airwaves with their alt-folk-rock score, Light Shines into a Space

Posted on 21 August 2023

After unveiling six LPs and six singles to date, the Dublin-forged, Australia-residing duo Sahara CyberStars, comprising the award-winning singer-songwriters Dave and Trish Long, exhibited how honed their synergistic sound has become in their latest single, Light Shines into a Space.

The duo may have gone down under, but their arcane Irish folk roots still linger at the epicentre of their theatrically inviting sound in Light Shines into a Space, which allows you to imagine how New Model Army’s post-punk musings would unravel with more ornate and orchestral instrumentals infused into their atmospheric stylings.

The deeply original score’s authenticity is only matched by the evocative pull of the release; from the first verse, you’ll be inseparably combined with the celestially scintillating experimentalism, which bends genres with the grace of an Olympian contortionist.

Light Shines into a Space is now available to stream on YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast