Taken from this week’s Future Pop mailer. Click here to subscribe. All my Songs of the Week are featured on my Top of the Poptastic playlist, along with the rest of my faves from 2017.
Not only has Australia launched some big international acts over the past few years, but they also have an abundance of local stars making great pop that the rest of the world hasn’t heard about (yet). Female singer E^ST (aka Mel Bester) can be filed next to Montaigne and Jess Kent in that category, both of whom have been featured here before. Although E^ST has a strong Aussie accent on new single Life Goes On, the track has a blissful electro-pop sound that you might guess was Scandinavian. In fact, the production is the work of a Brit – Jim Eliot. Jim’s credits include Kylie’s All The Lovers and Ellie Goulding’s Anything Could Happen, and it certainly has the same unusual combination of subtlety and anthemic-ness that those tracks share. I hope there is more to come from this collaboration! E^ST is signed to Parlophone and played her first UK gig a few weeks ago – sadly I didn’t hear of her til a few days later, so I’m hoping she’ll be back soon.