The best Australian music out this month

Sydney electronic artist Skeleten taps into club music’s comedown era.Credit: Astral People

Skeleten, Mentalized

It’s the natural order of things: after the party is the comedown. If pop’s immediate post-pandemic revelry saw artists tapping into the blissful abandon of house music and UK garage, it makes sense we’re now seeing the increasing return of trip-hop, ambient, chill, deep house, dub and those other more downbeat, and often eerie, elements of club music’s revival.

Sydney artist Skeleten – aka Russell Fitzgibbon, formerly one half of local favourites Fishing – follows up his acclaimed solo debut, 2023’s Under Utopia, with another club record in which atmospheric trip-hop and blissed-out Balearic vibes buffet against sentiments of existential disharmony (the album’s notes cite “ecological panpsychist thinking”, which I will Google at some point).

The results are intricate, expansive and surprisingly playful – this is an album that taps into dub’s influence from Orbital to, uh, 311’s Come Original. Bodys Chorus opens with clanging gamelan (that trip-hop staple), while These People and Mindreader feature the sort of turntable scratches that nu-metal bands got obsessed with when they discovered weed. Let It Grow and Ravers Dream find the connecting tissue between amapiano and Smoke City’s Underwater Love: drums tap like fingernails on a windowpane while acid squiggles and submarine beeps add the kind of spatial depth that can carry you away.

Uniting it all is Fitzgibbon’s gift for melancholic melodies, fuelled by the Arthur Russell-esque world of echo draping his understated vocals. Album highlight Raw is fantastically emotional, with ambient Eno tones and an undulating dub bass line giving way to fuzzed-out guitars and a hypnotic chant. In the remaining heavy air of summer, this is the right soundtrack. Robert Moran

Cosy, sexy, cool: Melbourne R&B artist CD.

CD, Blue Violet

Melbourne’s R&B and future-soul scene has been in rude health for many years now, and singer-songwriter CD is another worthy addition to the stable. Her debut EP Blue Violet is six tracks of gorgeously slinky and heavy-lidded R&B, knitted together over the past few years alongside producers such as Sollyy and Sam Varghese. Fellow rising talents Ms Thandi and Pania give extra drive to SS and Catcha Grip, but Blue Violet’s standout moment is Love Language, which pours CD’s vocals over an icy electronic palette.

The following track, the skittish, percussive Ish You, is another head-turning dip into dance. The widescreen production tips its hat to Copenhagen-based producer Erika de Casier, who is a strong influence across Blue Violet generally. Appropriately, CD was given a big tap on the shoulder to support de Casier on her recent Australian tour – certainly not a bad way to kick off a career. Jules LeFevre

Hachiku, aka Anika Ostendorf, explores community bonds on her sophomore album.Credit: Marathon Artists/Independent

Hachiku, The Joys of Being Pure at Heart

When Courtney Barnett and Jen Cloher closed their inimitable Milk Records imprint in late 2023, they’d spent more than a decade shepherding an ecosystem of musicians. Now out on their own, the fruits of that community are coming to bear.

Hachiku, aka Anika Ostendorf, was a long-serving Milk employee and signee. Her new album, The Joys of Being Pure at Heart, is a blissfully optimistic listen. Its songs, like Tell Your Friends You Love Them and Fun For Everyone, bubble with effervescent synths and percussion, anchored by heartfelt guitar.

When darkness creeps in on Time Wasted Worrying, there’s still light at the end of the tunnel. Even when Ostendorf’s singing of loss, it’s through the lens of care for her community: “Oh when they go, let me comfort you,” she sings on album opener Don’t Put Your Head Under Water. Working collaboratively after several largely solo releases, her band on the album – Jessie Warren, Georgia Smith and Simon Reynolds – are all Milk affiliates. Community bonds like those formed at Milk aren’t easily broken. Nick Buckley