Best Of: October 2020

October is over and it leaves with a lingering optimism. A month of victories. For Victorians, for my beloved Richmond FC, for Annastacia Pałaszczuk and for the feeling that perhaps 2020 isn’t a lost cause. I can finally drive the thirteen hours to hug my mum. I can talk on the phone to mates in Melbourne about their first dates. I can look forward to things that were literally illegal last month.

It feels like things are getting better.

Music also feels like it is getting better.

As we hit the backend of a bell-end year, it feels like new singles are flooding in. Be that through the increased confidence that releasing new music now won’t see it lost in the dread spirals of March and April. Or maybe it’s just the massively increased capacity for creative output that 2020 thrust upon many of us. Suddenly increased spare hours, for myself at least, meant I felt inclined to create and I’m sure I am not alone in this. For whatever reason, I am thankful for the flood.

Now, jump in the life raft and let me take you through my favourite tracks of October 2020.

Dribs - Things Change

“I’m so happy that i’m not a cunt” is perhaps the most blunt and brilliant opening line of the year. Things Change is a self aware song of self-loathing. Setting a scene of life progressing whilst you struggle to get out of bed.

When so often we talk our way around issues of mental health it is remarkably refreshing to see it laid on the table with such honesty. Rather than replying to the question “How are you going?” with “Yeah it’s going”, Things Change simply says it’s all a bit fucked, I’m pretty sad and feeling pointless but at least I’m not a cunt.

The lyric “Wake up, write a shit song, cause I don’t know how to play” however, needs to be rewritten. As this is a remarkably good song.

Jesswar - Venom

On Venom Brisbane’s Jesswar has staked a claim at being the meanest of the mean in Australian Hip-Hop. Sounding hard as hell on top of a dark beat, Jesswar effortlessly drops some of the best lines of the year. Some choice cuts include:

“I keep ya hooked like methamphetamine, ya shits horrific like mood swings on ketamine”

“Throw me to the dogs but I’m bad to the bone, keep throwin them rocks but my body made of stone”

“When I arrive at the gates, the first thing I say is hey bro, get the fuck off my throne”

Venom is a dominant statement, aggressive, intelligent and absolutely dripping with talent. There is no back down throughout the three minutes and nothing but brilliance in this bold display that barks.

Jethro Morris - I Hear Trains When I Sleep

A song of ups, downs, doubts, drinking and locomotives, there is an ever endearing nature to this song that lingers. Anthemic in its high moments I Hear Trains When I Sleep lives up to it’s stand out lyric “Baby I’m a ride”.

Somehow straddling a place between warm and on fire, IHTWIS is a wonderful introduction to Central Coast songwriter Jethro Morris. Flooded with nerves, self belief, self doubt and internal conflict the song makes an affable and easily relatable character out of Jethro Morris. Though I’ve never met him, through having this song on repeat throughout October, I feel we may as well be friends.

Quinton Trembath - Lamplight

There’s no hiding my admiration and genuine love for Quinton Trembath. From the moment he showed up in my living room, singing songs and talking openly to my housemate about life in a way so few can front up to, I knew I’d met a pretty special character. Incredibly aware, intelligent and endlessly creative, Quinton Trembath is a livewire.

Latest single Lamplight might just might be the Melbourne based songwriter’s best song to date. Managing to capture everything Trembath has to display in just three and a half minutes. Lamplight is flush with potent imagery, lyrical flourishes, observation, twinkly guitars and explosive singalong moments. Elevated to huge heights by his new and bloody excellent band, Lamplight is a fantastic and polished snapshot of the artist I adore.

Lola Scott - The Eviction Song

Singing of share houses, lost bonds, shitty landlords and the mundane nature of living lease to lease, Lola Scott sounds effortlessly perfect. A remarkable musician whose control of sound, dynamic and swell leads to the creation of songs of the everyday experience being elevated to epic alt-pop proportion.

Her fifth single in what has been a statement year for Lola Scott, The Eviction Song, is the perfect point to dive into one of the years most refreshing artists.

Leonie Kingdom - 2020

A brilliant observationalist taking a look at life amongst the oddity of 2020. Some of the most wonderful lyrical twists of the year fall so naturally into place with Leonie Kingdom. It’s a song that notices the tiniest of inconveniences alongside major inconveniences and mixes them in with the ones of a global pandemic. Tying together lyrics of corriander overloads, wondering if you’re ever actually seen on stage and COVID-19, Leonie Kingdom, manages to weave a track that matches the mood of 2020 perfectly whilst still sounding entirely incredible.

This is a song that wants you to listen and listen again, finding new details and favourite moments on each listen. However, it is the chorus that ties it all together and elevates the song.

And I’ve been having a hard time feeling good
Even though I know I should
I’ve been having a hard time feeling fine
Even though I know I’m right

It is such a universal feeling of not quite feeling right that binds the song together whilst bringing you into it.

Leonie Kingdom is a phenomenal songwriter and this is one of her finest to date.

Spirit Bunny - Paper Handshakes

Brilliantly Brisbane and entirely themselves, Spirit Bunny bound into view on Paper Handshakes. An oddity of vintage synths, off the wall mystery sounds, dual vocals, driving drums, property development and perfect imperfection, Paper Handshakes is unmissably strange and impossible to stop listening to.

Sounding somewhere between Architecture in Helsinki, Regurgitator, Datarock and a vintage arcade cabinet booting up, Spirit Bunny are beautifully joyous and producing some of the most interesting music I have heard in years.

This is the band’s first release on the incredibly lovely and rather new Zang! Records.