How Can We Lose When We're So Sincere by Lontalius
Photo: Supplied
Singer-songwriter Eddie Johnston, who makes music as Lontalius, has been quietly famous since his teens. His early cover songs attracted overseas attention, and a non-album cut called 'Sleep Thru Ur Alarms' became a gradual hit, with over 100 million streams on Spotify, where it wasn't even available till five years after its initial upload.
Since then he's ploughed a similarly melancholic vein, splitting the difference between emo indie rock and RnB influences, with his fifth album showing the two styles completely fused.
It would be condescending to say Johnston has found his sound here: He is five albums deep, in his late 20s, and works with prestigious Los Angeles producers. But there is an air of comfort and confidence that is unmissable, and a willingness to experiment.
His understanding of genre runs deep, and goes beyond pairing drum machines with indie guitars; it is far more immersive than that.
The music is always heartfelt, even if the album's title, How Can We Lose When We're So Sincere, feels sarcastic. Johnston has shown a razor sharp sense of irony on social media, and it is there in his albums too. But their surface is much more comforting.
Resistance by Tali
Photo: Reign Recordings
The press release for Tali's latest specifies that every track "is a nod to some sort of resistance against the status quo - an invitation to rebel against the narrative, whether it be society's expectations, the media, politicians, the patriarchy - even the music industry itself".
It is a sentiment you might expect at the start of someone's career, rather than 20 years into it, but the drum n' bass musician has been using her platform to advocate for women, in particular, for some time.
'Resistance' begins with Palestinian-Syrian refugee Rana Hamida's voice, before Tali's beat enters, an unexpected techno thud. It is a steadfast, pulsing rhythm, the track also featuring Middle-Eastern instrumentation.
'Foundations' collates voices from female drum n bass musicians around the globe, speaking about the genre's power to unify and provide a sense of belonging. The warm rush of synths over an explosive breakbeat serves to underline the point.
Seed of a Seed by Haley Heynderickx
Photo: Bandcamp
Haley Heynderickx grew up in a religious Filipino-American household, something she cites as an influence on her music, as well as guitarists like Leo Kotke. You can hear echoes of his style in her playing.
On Heynderickx's debut, delicate folk songs were conveyed in slightly skew-whiff ways, and while her follow-up is smoother, its joy lies in the way her eccentricities continue to poke through.
Opening track 'Gemini' is pleasantly unhinged, with each one after that tending toward tenderness. Several have a link to Heynderickx's fondness for plant life, including 'Foxglove', and 'Mouth of a Flower'.
Then there's 'Spit in the Sink', her fingerpicked style transplanted to electric guitar, with a hornline mapped to the vocal's emotional ebbs and flows.
She prioritises the music's beauty, but isn't afraid to make digressions, and those moments are the ones that tend to stick.
Tony Stamp reviews the latest album releases every week on The Sampler.