Single Of The Week
Julia Jacklin : Eastwick
Pop songs usually function as a circuit, looping from verse to bridge to chorus to bridge, building a sense of familiarity throughout. Eastwick doesn’t function as a circuit, more like a well-prepared one-way shuttle launch, beginning with Julia Jacklin’s sparse landscape of perfect and impactful lyricisms. The pay-off is rapture: searing guitars clearing the earth. Jacklin’s best composition yet, and that’s saying something.
Jen Cloher : Forgot Myself
The first track to be released from Jen Cloher’s upcoming self-titled LP, Forgot Myself unpacks woozy paranoia to utilise it as a power source. There’s plenty of power here, Cloher gradually building into a sneer that almost reaches auto-flagellation as the song explores maintaining identity and mitigating loneliness within a relationship. Forgot Myself doesn’t mark a seismic leap from Cloher’s previous material, but it does showcase a prevailing refinement of her strengths.
Jack River : Fool’s Gold
Jack River strikes a balanced alchemy between guitar-led alt-folk and electronic pop ballad, building on a simple four-chord square. It soars with its theatrics and pristine chorus. One of those cuts that could easily retain its strengths in solo acoustic mode.
Rachel Maria Cox : Emotionally Untidy
Full points for pulling off an uncanny conflation between energy drinks and emotional tension; the reference to electrolytes setting up what is a bit of a rock‘n’roll belter in essence – replete with a sick guitar solo.
