Eaglemont, Juice Webster, Bella Amor & More: This Week’s Best New Music

Juice Webster
Returning

As the opening track on her just-announced debut album, JULIA, Juice Webster’s new single Returning sets a very deliberate tone: wistful and cruisy, but laden richly with character and intent. It's a melancholic indie-pop tune à la Phoebe Bridgers et al, written by Webster as a reflection on her recurring desires to "go back in time and really soak up moments from my past, which ultimately turned out to be really significant and special to me”.

She explained further in a statement: "There’s so much from my childhood that I cling to now, but that I know at the time didn’t seem important. And now all of a sudden I find myself down the road with this weight, yearning for these moments or people from my past, knowing that the only way through is forward.”

Returning comes as Webster's third single for the year, following In The Zone (which arrived back in April) and Headaches (June). All three of the bops will appear on JULIA, due out September 15 via Cohort.

Eaglemont
Vodka Pineapple

After making a lowkey debut in 2019 with the singles Hound and Heteronormative Nightmare, indie upstart Eaglemont (aka Bridg Jessop) is making a huge push for stardom in 2023. The lead single from her upcoming debut album, Party Boy, is emotive and energised, fusing emo vibes to a bubblegum-y base. In a press statement, they noted that Vodka Pineapple was “inspired by a painful realisation I had where I was the protagonist in the downfall of my relationships and it was all my fault” – you know, the perfect basis for a super catchy pop song.

Jessop went on to say this: “In line with the thread that runs through the entire record, it’s a glorified diary entry that recounts events, often with haunting hindsight. Not that you should use creating art as therapy singularly (you should probably just go to therapy).”

Party Boy will be out later this year (a concrete release date is yet to be locked in). In the meantime, Jessop will tour nationally with Cry Club in August and September. The latter band’s guitarist, Jono Tooke, produced the album; according to Jessop, he was the missing puzzle piece to making it perfect: “I had been listening to a lot of Alvvays, Japanese House and Phoebe Bridgers,” she said, “and I was tentative to attempt to force a stylistic choice on the production. Luckily enough Jono is a genius and somehow we transformed some sad and gay guitar based songs into what they are today (which is still sad and gay tbh).”

Bella Amor
Does It Get Boring

With her third release for the year, Bella Amor’s hot-streak of spellbinding pop singles remains unchallenged. Following the March release of Sentimental and May’s Cut Too Deep, this new gem shines with tastefully crunchy guitars, soaring vocal harmonies, and of course, one hell of a hook. And like most of Amor’s output, Does It Get Boring (absolutely not, by the way) epitomises “short and sweet”, clocking in at just under two-and-a-half minutes but packing in a wealth of colour.

Here’s what Amor herself had to say about it: “This song is about someone I met on Tinder and was seeing casually on and off. They always complained about being single and never finding love but they were very self-destructive and knew that. They had people lining up at their feet and it made me question if it was boring doing the same old thing but longing for something else. And that's how Does It Get Boring was created, out of a genuine curiosity.”

Tash Sultana
Bitter Lovers (featuring BJ The Chicago Kid)

March saw Tash Sultana return with James Dean, the first new song to follow up on their 2021 album, Terra Firma. They chased it up in May with New York, and now they’re back once more with Bitter Lovers. Released alongside the announcement of a six-track EP called Sugar, this tune is silky and shimmery, slicking Sultana’s psych-y vibe over a smooth palette of pop and hip-hop flavours. It also features BJ The Chicago Kid, who according to Sultana, added so much of his own character.

“It means something different to both of us,” they said in a press release, “which is why we decided to split a verse each and come together in the chorus. For me, some people just think you're going to be waiting around forever, in any capacity, friend, lover, or family member. I got boundaries with people, and that's what I'm getting at in this track.”

On linking up with BJ, Sultana said: “Pretty sure it's like any typical modern-day music collab. We had been following each other for a while cause I'm a fan of what he does, and lo and behold, one morning, I woke up, and there was a nice little message in my DM's from BJ saying, ‘Let's fucking do a track.' Now here we are.”

Bitter Lovers, New York and James Dean will all feature on Sugar, which is due out on August 11 via Sultana’s own label, Lonely Lands Records. It’s described as “a reflection piece, encapsulating [Sultana’s] life from 2021 to 2023”, which will offer fans a “captivating storytelling experience, incorporating cryptic wording and musical style, leaving the true message open to interpretation”.

Tkay Maidza
Silent Assassin (with Flume)

A week out from her national arena supporting Lizzo, Tkay Maidza has dropped an earth-shaking new single titled Silent Assassin. It’s an unsurprisingly fierce cut from the queen of Australian rap, pairing her up with another genre-leading stalwart in Flume. 

“I like to move in silence,” Maidza says of her latest anthem, “but this song is a reminder that people shouldn’t count me out or underestimate my abilities; they should be afraid when I'm quiet as I come back more evolved. I’ve always wanted to work with Flume and was immediately ecstatic when he played the instrumental for this; I wanted to channel Busta Rhymes and Missy Elliot.”

Silent Assassin follows up on Maidza’s recent collab with Snakehips – Show Me The Money, which landed back in March – as well as last year’s standalone singles Hazy (a joint effort with Kyle Dion that arrived last February) and Nights In December (which, painfully, dropped in November).

You can listen to the Hit List playlist featuring all the above songs and more on Apple Music or Spotify. We also have our Underground playlists that showcase the best of Australia's emerging artists. Find all of our playlists here.