(via Shutterstock)
I love disappearing down rabbit holes.
Not actual rabbit holes, of course; that’s best left to the family Laporidae I think; rather, the digital version where one discovery leads to another leads to another, usually on YouTube for me where so many songs and trailers and clips await.
It was on one such rabbit holing session early this month that came across brilliant song after brilliant song – to be fair, the algorithm is not always this giving or intuitive – that I found the following five songs which went immediately onto my January playlist and which made my first week or two of commuting of the year infinitely more memorable and tuneful.
Here’s to a year of great tunes and magical musical moments for us all!
“Promises” by A Thousand Mad Things
(courtesy A Thousand Mad Things Instagram)
My first, and likely favourite discovery in this particular session – yes, I am be playing favourites but only marginally – was a “Promises” by A Thousand Mad Things who has a penchant for emotion-filled, synth-driven, muscularly musical tracks.
As a man who found his musical bearings in the latter half of the ’70s and early-to-mid-’80s, this brilliantly named artist absolutely found an instant fan in me, and yes, while I love and adore new music, and I’m far from being a pointless captive of nostalgia, throw in some heritage sounds and I am usually totally there.
Known as William Barradale when he’s not on stage, A Thousand Mad Things bio says he finds “solace in untampered expression … treading a line of resonant, evocative melodrama”, not unlike that of his musical hero Billy Mackenzie from The Associates.
‘We really wanted to do something like Billy Mackenzie from The Associates and I loved that idea’, he explains. ‘That twisted, operatic drama that he had, he’s so exposed at the same time. Billy is a huge inspiration for me.’ (Nettwerk)
Drawing from “trauma and pain”, the music of A Thousand Mad Things does a captivating double of getting your feet dancing while you really feel something intensely and truly and that is likely the greatest gift of this very talented artist.
“Dance the Pain Away” by Haute & Freddy
(courtesy Wasserman, official booking agency for Haute & Freddy)
My discovery of Haute & Freddy last year was so good for my heart!
At a time of huge work-related stress, finding the music of LA-based musicians-songwriters Michelle Buzz and Lance Shipp gave me hugely danceable music, clever lyrics and a sense of vibrantly quirky theatricality that I needed, and sloughed off a ton of toxically awful stressfulness that was hollowing me out.
Far from being a one-off, Haute & Freddy have done it again with the idiosyncratically beat-heavy “Dance the Pain Away”, drawn from their upcoming debut LP, Big Disgrace, which will hit streaming services and record store shelves on 13 March this year.
It’s an amazingly compelling track that will have you hitting repeat, well, repeatedly, and about which they have had this to say:
‘Dance The Pain Away’ is a feeling we’ve been dreaming of capturing in a song. That bustling street, grime of the city, crowded dance floor, ready to forget the world kind of feeling. Right when we laid down the verse synth and the sporadic bass rhythm we were addicted to listening and trying to finish it. The chorus took so long to figure out. Like weeks. But one magical day it happened all at once on the mic and we were in shock at how good the song felt. It was everything we were feeling, all the overwhelmed emotions, the chaos of how life can feel, and at the same time, the ease of how it can all go away for a little while when you’re dancing.’ (Brooklyn Vegan)
“new life, new friends” by The Anahit
(courtesy official The Anahit Insta)
While I have my genre preferences like anyone, one thing I love is when an artist, possessed of the ability to push envelopes and engage in truly out of the box musical thinking, dares to cross genres or blender them all together.
Such an inspired artist is Anahit (singer/songwriter/producer Rita Csanyi & drummer Daniel Kocsis) who describe themselves as “a genre-defying duo … that seamlessly fuses seamlessly fuses dark pop, R&B, and Balkan folk vocal elements to craft a sound that is both distinctive and captivating.”
They go on to reference “raw emotions” and the ability to give “voice to feelings often left unspoken”, all of which come surging exuberantly forward on “new life, new friends” which possesses all the danceable verve you need to feel all the things to music that bounces like a giddy kid on a sugar high.
The lyrics come with real resonance too as the singer describes leaving a toxic old life behind and heading “out in the world” for a “new life”; melancholic regret and buoyant happiness, the latter clearly supplanting the other, playing back and forth in a song that feels the soul even as it makes the feet hit a frenzied pace that doesn’t let up for a glorious second.
“Talk to Me” by Robyn
(courtesy official Robyn Instagram)
Legendary Swedish music artist Robyn has long been a huge favourite of mine, entering my musical consciousness and my top 5 singer-songwriters ever in 2005 when I was captivated by songs like “Konichiwa Bitches” and “Cobrastyle” from her 2005 LP Robyn, an ardent connection that only cemented further in 2010 when I stumbled across Body Talk Pt. 1 and Body Talk Pt. 2 in a record store.
I had heard the 2005 tracks not long after I belatedly came out, and Robyn, who is well loved in the LGBTQI+ community, became the soundtrack to me finally, after being waylaid by the Christian upbringing of my youth, becoming the person I always was but had denied for so long.
So, there’s a lot of affection from me for Robin Miriam Carlsson who as well being a stellar singer-songwriter, is also an eminently well qualified record producer and DJ; all of those talents are on full display on “Talk to Me”, lifted from her upcoming LP, Sexistential, which comes out 27 March.
“Talk to Me” was released in tandem with the title track and together they are vintage Robyn and yet wonderfully and vibrantly of the moment, proof that this amazingly talented artist is a long, long way from being tapped out yet.
“Only One Laughing” by Hatchie
(courtesy official Hatchie Instagram)
Let’s hear it for some homegrown Aussie talent!
Harriette Pilbeam, better known by her professional mononym, Hatchie, burst onto the scene in 2017 with her single “try” which led to her debut EP, Sugar & Spice(2018) which, rather happily for all of us, was followed with three albums, the most recent being 2025’s Liquorice, from which one of my wondrously good YouTube finds, “Only One Laughing” is drawn.
All of that success though took a toll with the singer admitting in a The Sydney Morning Herald profile in 2025 in the lead up to the release of Liquorice that “I was definitely at a low point mentally after tje last album” (2022’s Keepsake which she says “performed fine” but which suffered, in her mind, from the “unrealistic expectations” she had set for herself based on her early meteoric success.
With her 2025 release, the burden of those crushing expectations has lifted with the singer moving back to Australia from LA and grounding herself in what it means to have success on your terms, something that is reflected in the album which the article describes thus:
Clearly inspired by dream-pop and shoegaze icons like the Cocteau Twins and Mazzy Star, Hatchie’s voice floats through curtains of glassy guitars (see lead single and standout Lose It Again) and reverb-heavy kick drums (another standout, Only One Laughing). Layers and layers of guitars dosed with chorus pedals fill every gap. Then there’s Hatchie herself, sounding freer and more exuberant than ever before.