Every week we collect a new batch of songs for your listening pleasure. Here are this week’s Blerg Bangers – a special International Womens’ Day list:

Summer Flake – ‘Wine Won’t Wash Away’

I say it almost every time I have to write about a new song of hers, but Steph Crase really is a genius. From her hushed vocals, her frighteningly brutal guitar playing, and the general gorgeous way she manages to transform the melancholy world of her mind into such sweet, digestible, succulent songs, she never disappoints with each new release. And finally, FINALLY, she looks like she’s going to get some of the recognition and respect she deserves, with more and more international taste makers taking up her charge. They’re late to the party, but thankfully Steph has laid out plenty of lemonade and fairy bread for everyone.

Charlie Hilton – ‘100 Million’

Dusty, Nancy, Dolly, Karen – you can hear an amalgamation of so many great ’60s and ’70s  female vocalists pop their little nuances out in this hauntingly beautiful, gliding number by the rising Portland songwriter. A cameo from Mac Demarco serves as a sweet counterpoint, and a little star power, put its the pitter patter rhythm section, the bendy/slinky guitar lines, and the smoky, smoky, smoky texture of Hilton’s BBQ’d voice that is the real flavour.

Mitski – ‘Your Best American Girl’

Who would have thunk – with the moody, thumb thumped guitar notes gently waking this song up that half way through it would kick into a stadium-filling, power chord avalanche. Mitski has been prolific over the last few years, pumping out three incredible records, but quantity seems to only have spawned quality if ‘Your Best American Girl’ serves as a suggestion to what we can clutch and hope for to come from the release of her new album Puberty 2 in June.

Big Thief – ‘Masterpiece’

There’s an impossible sexiness and swagger that flows through this track, such is its confidence in its musicianship and its lyricism. It’s like the band strode into the studio with the song’s name tattooed on their forearms, such was their belief that it was going to define them as an artistic endeavour and wake the world up to their sound. With NPR love early on, it seems that that ink job was well founded.

Julia Jacklin – ‘Pool Party’

We opened with an Aussie singer who’s punched her way to the top, we close with one breaking necks early on, as everyone tries to get a glimpse of Julia Jacklin as her career thunders past them. Waltzing with the warmth of a Stevie Nicks, but drawing comparisons to contemporaries like Angel Olsen and Sharon Van Etten, Jacklin is yet to set herself definitively apart from those established icons. But we have faith that behind that incredible voice are stories yet to be told that will captivate with their own narrative and insight. ‘Pool Party’ is shimmery, flashing glimpses of alt country love, seductive ’70s studio warmth, and harmonies that are as gorgeous as they float into your ears as they are when they shiver down the back of your spine. Predicting big alt radio love very, very soon.