Every week we collect a new batch of songs for your listening pleasure – plus a classic that you should definitely know and love. Here’s this week’s Blerg Bangers:

Phantastic Ferniture – ‘Gap Year’

Upholding the tradition of Australian bands with silly names, Sydney’s Phantastic Ferniture also hold up the long local tradition of being fantastically talented to the point where they resonate as the kind of act that I’m sure would have been massive already if they were from the UK or US. There are moments that reflect the kind of hauntingly dark and gorgeous tones of Land Of Talk, Wye Oak and Lower Dens, but a stern pacing that pounds with the determination of a band set on establishing themselves as their own artisinal brand in a sea of knock offs. This track dropped a few months ago, and they’ve only got a smudge of recorded music out there just yet, but fixate on this space for big things to come in the not too distant future.

Ruth Carp and the Fish Heads – ‘High Fidelity’

I remember watching the episode of Inside The Actors Studio with John Travolta, where he described when he was trying to get into character to play Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction, in order to try and appreciate/recreate the high of heroin, he took a friend’s recommendation and drank a shit load of tequila and soaked in a hot tub. This song sounds like the soundtrack to that special evening. Only if Travolta got so drunk that he pissed himself, passed out, almost drowned, and woke up choking on a mix of piss, tequila and tepid bathtub water. It’s disgusting, woozy, definitely bad for you – and fucking exhilarating.

Major Leagues – ‘Better Off’

I’m still wholeheartedly a supporter of the statement that Major Leagues’ song ‘Someone Sometime’ is one of the most underrated indie pop gems to emerge from an Australian act in the last decade. So it’s always going to be hard for me for the band to surpass that effort in my mind. However, although ‘Better Off’ trips around the tingling, heavenly melodies of ‘Someone Sometime’ and instead delivers a blunter, less pretty, less digestible blend of pop, it still totally satisfies with its own unique flavours and textures. Like any good chef will tell you, if you just used sugar all the time in your cooking, everything would taste like shit. You need to add some bitterness and saltiness into the mixture to make the sweetness all that more delectable, and the sweeter moments of ‘Better Off’ are irresistible.

Kevin Morby – ‘I Have Been To The Mountain’

You know how sometimes you’re half way through a brilliant movie, and you’re really enjoying it, but there are so many plot layers and subtle character developments that you know that you’re going to have to watch it again even before you’re even done with the first viewing? Yeah, that’s this song. It’s thick with accents and variations and influences, most instantly recalling later Timber Timbre, but also with a distinct, eclectic musicianship that is very singular. Each new listen reveals a new hidden treasure though, and I swear after 10 repeat plays I’ve only just scratched the surface.

The Knack – ‘Good Girls Don’t’

Like most ignorant kids these days, I’d always dismissed The Knack as massive one hit wonders. But I’ve recently been educated on just how all conquering the band’s debut record Get The Knack really was, and when you hear a song like ‘Good Girls Don’t’ you realise there were so many more stories than the one about some chick with a stupid name like Sherona. The Beach Boy’s harmonies, the Elvis Costello energy, the Kinks guitars – these guys just knew how to write the shit out of a pop rock song. Definitely a band worth further investigation for those who wanna make the effort.