The Jukebox: the best new local tunes to add to your playlist this month
The three-month rollercoaster that is the end of the year has seen the annual period of busyness creep up again – and Queensland’s music scene is no exception. This month, I observed tangible and common themes of desire, hope and unfiltered delight across the local music offering – and I have to say, it’s come at just the right time. Take a look at some of the best songs to come out of Brisbane, Gold Coast and beyond this October …
‘Fun!’ – Special Features
Special Features kind of need to be seen to be believed. The Brisbane punk-rock four-piece give themselves over to live performance in a way that recording can only scrape the surface of, something I quickly learned when I saw them perform in QUIVR’s new Sound Room last month.
It’s this first-hand experience that qualifies me to say that ‘Fun!’, the band’s latest track to break containment, gets pretty close to the real deal. The song sees Special Features dive deeper into its inner percussionists and flutists, featuring more bells and whistles (literally) than its usual brand of Australian punk-rock and 90s grunge tones.
If you’re looking for a sample of the band’s reckless chaos, we’d recommend checking out the music video or grabbing tickets to Hotel Brunswick next weekend on Friday November 6, where the band will play along with Dune Rats, HEADSEND and Speira.
Listen to this: if you’re a corporate drone in need of a release.
‘this way (forever)’ – bella amor
With a sound comparable to Charli XCX and Remi Wolf, Gold Coast artist bella amor and her indie-pop-punk tunes still retain a distinctly fresh and original quality.
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This has never been more true than with the release of the singer’s newest single, ‘this way (forever)’, which lays bare exactly what bella wants most – to be a pop star.
Drawing on the artist’s uncontainable passion and big dreams, ‘this way (forever)’ adequately puts into lyrics how it feels to still be building your origin story when you’re ready to start living your destiny. As bella explained on her instagram “Do you ever feel like you’re not really living up to your full capacity in the way that you dream so much bigger than the life you currently have? Because I do every freaking day, and I’ve never known what to do about it, and I still don’t, so I put it in a song so at least I can dance it out’. Oh, and she made the cover art herself by hand. You’re already a pop star to us, bella.
Listen to this: when you’re running low on ambition and need to dance out your feelings.
‘Weekends’ – Selve
Though the weather has been dreary as of late, dream pop revellers Selve have tapped into its never-ending supply of neon-hued energy and feel-good funk to bring us ‘Weekends’, a track that is already elbowing its way into our summer playlists.
The band describes ‘Weekends’ as a technicolour masterclass on how to dance through a broken heart. The track arrived hand-in-hand with a dopamine-fuelled, self-directed music video shot in the band’s studio carpark, featuring a pinata, a flaming sword and some 80s inspired wardrobe choices (a recipe for a perfect weekend that I’m adding to my to-do list as we speak).
The band is celebrating by taking their high-energy show on the road, with sets scheduled for essentially every weekend left of 2026. After supporting The Rubens on tour until November, the band will hit Rolling Sets Festival 2026, before joining UK superstars Wolf Alice on tour and then rounding out the year with NYE On The Hill – I guess you could say Selve know a thing or two about weekends.
Listen to this: on your summer and New Year’s Eve party playlists.
‘Look Up’ – Sycco
I first heard the opening track of Sycco’s newest album Look Up in early September, when the Brisbane-born bedroom pop artist gave an intimate early album launch performance out the bed of a ute in a carpark in Fortitude Valley.
It was no mean feat trying to pick a favourite from the stellar album for The Jukebox, so I settled on the first track I heard at that performance, which shares the same name as the album – ‘Look Up’.
Subscribe for updatesThe song opens with a glitchy, infectious riff of the chorus that immediately instills a sense of child-like freedom and the insatiable desire to cut a rug. Building on the album’s theme of exploring existentialism, the track serves as a tender reminder to look up and remember that we’re all just on a rock spinning in space.
If you’d like to know more about the album and Sycco’s intimate carpark performances, have a read of the chat I had with the singer earlier this month here.
Listen to this: while frolicking through a field of wildflowers.
‘The Art of Suggestion’ – Asha Jefferries
Melancholic pop vocalist Asha Jefferies released her sophmore album Desire Is An Angel earlier this month, which focuses on the feeling of Asha reaching her arms out over the world in search of something that was always inside of her all along.
The notion that desire is an integral part of the human experience is threaded throughout this album, with track ‘The Art of Suggestion’ exploring the artist’s switch from wanting to be the subject of someone else’s desire to embodying her own desires.
“I thought yearning meant leaving myself and the home I’d built, but desire has driven me closer towards myself, to my sense of home and my connection to life,” Asha explained.
Listen to this: when you need to get back in touch with your inner desires.
September’s Honourable Mentions
September also saw the former busker turned indie-folk-pop icon Ziggy Alberts release his newest studio album Twin Flames, signifying the artist’s confident step into new territory. Shag Rock have put their easy-going guitar riffs and sun-drenched sounds back in our ears with the release of album Three Deep Breaths, while folk-rockers Red Hill and folk trio newcomers The Nomads also released new music.
Click here to listen to the full Jukebox playlist.
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