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FEATURE MUSIC

THIS MONTH?

BIL Y’S PICK

AUSSIE RELEASES

PULP More ROCKET

Pulp fans rejoice! After putting the band back together in 2022, More is the Britpop group’s first album in 24 years.

KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD Phantom Island INERTIA

SONS OF THE EAST Sons MGM

Sons of the East, a rootsy trio from Sydney’s Northern

Dedicated to bass player Steve Mackey, who died in 2023, Jarvis Cocker says simply: “It was written and performed by four human beings from the north of England… No AI was involved during the process. This is the best that we can do.” VAN MORRISON Remembering Now INERTIA 47th studio album. The Northern Ireland great is known for his grumpiness, but love is on show here, with songs such as The Only Love I Ever Need Is Yours and Back to Writing Love Songs . The opening track, Down to Joy , was nominated for an Oscar after being featured in the Kenneth Branagh film Belfast . YUNGBLUD Idols UNIVERSAL Van the Man turns 80 this year, but he’s unstoppable. Remembering Now is his

There’s no other band quite like King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. Phantom Island is their 27th studio album since 2012. It’s a

Beaches, show they’re ready for stardom on Sons , the follow-up to their 2022 debut Palomar Parade . Like Melbourne’s Pierce Brothers, Sons of the East bring sunshine to even the bleakest of winter keyboardist Nic Johnston said of the first single, Rescue Me : “Like so many of our songs, even though it hints at heartbreak, it’s really an upbeat, hopeful song.” All of the songs here sound like old friends. TROPICAL F-CK STORM Fairyland Codex ROCKET After The Drones went on hiatus in 2016, Gareth Liddiard and days, with magical melodies and heavenly harmonies. As singer/ joining forces with Erica Dunn and Lauren Hammel. Their fourth album, Fairyland Codex , is fierce and feral music for a f-cked-up world. As Liddiard notes, “There’s an Anna Akhmatova poem where she talks about how much life sucks and how the world is just a sh-thole full of arseholes. Then she says something like, ‘Why then do we not despair?’ Charles Darwin could give her the short answer, but music has the 12-inch metaphysical party-mix solution.” Fiona Kitschin focused on Tropical F-ck Storm,

companion piece to last year’s Flight b741 , with the band noting that record contained the more “rowdy” songs, while the new release is “more laidback”. After meeting the Los Angeles Philharmonic backstage at the Hollywood Bowl in 2023, King Gizzard decided to explore an orchestral sound. Singer Stu Mackenzie explains: “The songs felt like they needed this other energy and colour, that we needed to splash some different paint on the canvas.” The result is a beautiful trip. MICK THOMAS’ ROVING COMMISSION First Step in a Homeward Direction MGM

C lassically trained but seduced by the possibilities of jazz improvisation, pianist/ composer Chick Corea would become a 27-time Grammy winner and a pioneer of jazz fusion while a member of Miles Davis’s late-’60s band and the leader of his innovative ’70s band Return to Forever that helped launch the careers of bassist Stanley Clarke and guitarist Al Di Meola. Armando “Chick” Corea died of cancer in 2021, aged 79. With Trilogy, one of his most acclaimed bands, Corea and drummer Brian Blade and bassist Christian McBride released two extraordinary albums, consistently pushing each other with interplay that bordered on musical telepathy. Their third album, Trilogy 3 , featuring fresh in-concert interpretations of many of their groundbreaking compositions, is now available at all JB Hi-Fi stores. CHICK COREA TRIO Trilogy 3 MGM

Four decades after the first Weddings Parties Anything release, singer Mick Thomas is still telling terrific Aussie tales. For the Roving

Idols is the fourth album for English singer Dominic Harrison, who records under the name of

Commission’s new seven-track collection, the band headed to Neil Finn’s Roundhead Studios in Auckland. And it is very much a band, with Brooke Taylor taking lead vocal duties on the opening track, a cover of Charles Jenkins’ Across the Nullarbor . Thomas also revisits the Weddoes tune Walkerville , covers Carla Geneve’s Yesterday’s Clothes and closes the record with a heartfelt tribute to The Screaming Jets’ Paul Woseen, covering his classic Helping Hand .

Yungblud. A powerful record about life, love and death – “There’s a chance I won’t see you tomorrow, so I will spend today saying hello,” he sings – it follows his 2022 self-titled set, which topped the Australian charts.

Coming in JULY WET LEG Moisturizer (Jul 11) ALICE COOPER The Revenge of Alice Cooper (Jul 25) TIM MINCHIN Time Machine (Jul 25)

Radio legend Billy Pinnell presents Billy Pinnell’s Musical Moments on YouTube.

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