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Shortlist: the best new Australian music
An aural degustation of the best new homegrown cuts, featuring Two Can, Vera Blue, Cub Sport, Alex Lahey, Mallrat and Tash Sultana.
1. TWO CAN
![Two Can - Oscar and Myles Sach-Haber](http://web.archive.org./web/20160905184301im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/3/l/6/i/image.imgtype.articleLeadwide.620x349.png/1472719757108.png)
Two Can's brotherly duo Oscar and Myles Sach-Haber.
From Ray and Dave Davies trying to incapacitate each other at Kinks gigs in the 1960s, to the eternal feuding of Oasis mainstays Noel and Liam Gallagher, the history of brothers in bands is a fractious one. "I'm aware that sibling partnerships usually don't work out too well, but we're genuinely close," says Oscar Sach-Haber, who along with his younger brother Myles, forms the Melbourne electronic duo Two Can. "It's rare that we fight, and if we do we're going to wake up in the same home the next morning, so we just have to figure it out." The siblings started Two Can two years ago, entering the indie-electronic scene with a succession of successful remixes while making waves with original cuts via Triple J's Unearthed initiative. This month they release their debut EP, Continuance, which is preceded by the serendipitous tropical groove of the single Holding On To You, which showcases their skills as a jazz percussionist (Oscar) and guitarist and audio engineer (Myles). "One thing that divides us from our peers is that we start live and then program it into the computer," Oscar says. "We've always wanted a live sound for electronically produced music."
FOR FANS OF: Disclosure and Jamie xx
MUST-HEAR TRACK: Holding On To You
2. VERA BLUE
![Vera Blue](http://web.archive.org./web/20160905184301im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/o/i/b/j/image.imgtype.articleLeadwide.620x349.png/1470721615581.png)
Singer-songwriter Celia Pavey performs her alternative-electronic music under the name Vera Blue.
The solemn electronic chill of Vera Blue's Fingertips EP has not only launched three popular singles – Hold, Settle, and now the title track – but it's also encouraged a growing legion of fans to assume that the otherworldly voice of the 22-year-old from Forbes must be singing autobiographical lyrics. That's a slight problem when Fingertips is written from the perspective of a lover well-versed in infidelity. "It's not about me, but when I sing it I feel connected to the situation," says Celia Pavey, the artist behind Vera Blue. "I love writing about what other people tell you they're going through. You connect to it and make it your own." Two sold out national tours – the second still running – this year have rewarded Pavey's reinvention of herself from a folk singer who got her initial break via the television show The Voice into an alternative-electronic singer-songwriter; autumnal beauty and chilled grooves complement each other. "Adding electronics was something I always wanted, but I just didn't know how to get there," Pavey says. "Once I did it happened really naturally. It was a right place and right time experience."
FOR FANS OF: Banks and London Grammar
MUST-HEAR TRACK: Settle
3. CUB SPORT
![Cub Sport - Tim Nelson (lead vocals, keyboards), Zoe Davis (bass, vocals), Sam Netterfield (keyboards, vocals) and Dan Puusaari (drums).](http://web.archive.org./web/20160905184301im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/3/l/6/8/image.imgtype.articleLeadwide.620x349.png/1472442777039.png)
Cub Sport are Tim Nelson (lead vocals, keyboards), Zoe Davis (bass, vocals), Sam Netterfield (keyboards, vocals) and Dan Puusaari (drums).
The music industry machinations required to get a support slot with a superstar international act usually lean to the nefarious or nepotism, but Brisbane indie-pop quartet Cub Sport opened the recent Australian tour by English tyros the 1975 due to a simple reason. "Their stage manager told us that Matty the singer chose us because he actually just liked us," says Cub Sport's frontman, Tim Nelson. Playing to 10,000 people at Olympic Park – and loving the size of the stage – is just part of a banner year that's seen the group receive acclaim for their debut album, This is Our Vice, and deliver a transfixing version of Kanye West's Ultralight Beam for Triple J's Like a Version slot. Cub Sport are five years old, but they've profited from the time to develop their immaculate grooves and yearning lyrics. It's only in the last 12 months that they've hit their productive stride. "After the first EPs we all grew up," Nelson says. "We know what our music should be. I'm more honest in the songwriting on the album and it all comes from a genuine place, which is why it's connecting with people."
FOR FANS OF: Hot Chip and Miami Horror
MUST-HEAR TRACK: I Can't Save You
4. ALEX LAHEY
![Alex Lahey](http://web.archive.org./web/20160905184301im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/3/l/y/j/image.imgtype.articleLeadwide.620x349.png/1472443748541.png)
Alex Lahey's indie rock anthems are raucous and melancholy, inspiring and introspective.
There's a moment at every Alex Lahey gig that comes when the Melbourne singer-songwriter plays her signature tune Let's Go Out. Hundreds of people shout along to one of the track's snappy lines: "Remember that time that we slept together, and we just slept and your girlfriend dumped you anyway." As with Lahey's other indie-rock anthems in the making, Let's Go Out is raucous and melancholy, inspiring and introspective. "For me it's about being involved with someone where we were on the cusp of something that never became serious," says Lahey. "There's something sad about that, but at the same time it's about getting drunk and pushing the boundaries. That's not sad." A fortnight ago the gregarious 23-year-old threw in her day job, as the momentum of Let's Go Out and its predecessor, You Don't Think You Like People Like Me, meant she could self-finance her band's burgeoning tour schedule. "Music is such an important thing and it should be everywhere," Lahey declares, and she can't wait until she follows up her online kudos internationally. "When they give me that customs form on the plane, under profession I'm going to put musician."
FOR FANS OF: Courtney Barnett and the Lemonheads
MUST-HEAR TRACK: Let's Go Out
5. MALLRAT
![Mallrat - Grace Shaw](http://web.archive.org./web/20160905184301im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/3/l/6/p/image.imgtype.articleLeadwide.620x349.png/1472444190166.png)
Grace Shaw, aka Mallrat, is already fielding offers from overseas record labels.
When Grace Shaw was 16 years old, the high school student from Brisbane started experimenting with making music via the computer program GarageBand. At first she didn't tell anyone what she was doing, but she had a gut feeling one of her initial efforts, a see-sawing hip-hop-inflected track called Suicide Blonde, was worth sharing. Within weeks Triple J was playing it, and Shaw, now 17, is soon to go overseas to field potential offers from international record labels. Even with working part-time food court shifts she's having a great gap year, with the buoyant new single For Real heralding her debut EP Uninvited. But what Shaw and her daring, deadpan performance persona share is a disregard for celebrity. "Fame is a scary thing," she says, echoing an anti-VIP demand from her EP's title track: "Get me off the list, I've got nothing on my wrist." Her interests as a songwriter are the minor moments that illuminate the pleasure of pop. "I love catchy music," Shaw says "but the one thing I do try to do when I'm writing is to document all the little human disappointments I experience."
FOR FANS OF: Grimes and Chance the Rapper
MUST-HEAR TRACK: For Real
6. TASH SULTANA
![Tash Sultana is on the cusp of selling out three shows at Richmond's Corner Hotel.](http://web.archive.org./web/20160905184301im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/j/r/7/6/image.imgtype.articleLeadwide.620x349.png/1470373551460.png)
Tash Sultana's music spans roots rock, ambient textures and beat looping.
Tash Sultana doesn't want to say where her favourite busking spot is in the Melbourne CBD: she's worried she'll lose it. But it's unlikely the 21-year-old multi-instrumentalist with the backwards baseball cap, who creates one-woman soundscapes that span roots rock, ambient textures, beat looping and much more, will be back on the footpath anytime soon. Her upcoming national tour is triple the size of her last one and she's already been booked for European festivals as her new single, Notion, racks up numerous online plays. "It would be arrogant to come to music only thinking about success," she says. "Music is the embodiment of my soul. When I play I'm not performing a song, I'm becoming it. When I play it's like there's an electric current running through me. If you watch my live videos sometimes I shake, and it's because of that." Part of an extended Maltese-Australian clan – "it keeps me grounded, I'm just Tash to them" – the self-taught musician, who was handed a guitar by her grandfather at age three and never looked back, is excited about her music's impact. "You bring people together, something that happens less and less in this age," Sultana says. "You can impact on people with music, and I love that because music impacts on me."
FOR FANS OF: Ben Harper, PJ Harvey
MUST-HEAR TRACK: Notion