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Music

Winter Sucks But These Chilled Tracks Have Made It Less Sucky

From Gold Class to P.H.F. to Ill's and Darcy Baylis we look back at some of the best (and chillest) Australian and New Zealand tracks of winter.

What makes a good winter song is debatable but it has to embody the season in some sense.

Whether it's the awesome and delicate beauty of ice and snow, the oppressive gloom of days of unending rain, the bitter chill or refreshing breeze of the wind, the winter song should be winter itself. Or maybe it should just be a pristine banger, something that gets your mind off the soaking wet socks and jackets slowly turning into mould on your bedroom floor. Either way, to commemorate the season of Australian and New Zealand music almost past, here are the coldest tracks of winter 2015.

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Client Liaison + Gypsy & the Cat – “Evolution”

Monte Morgan and Harvey Miller have been tearing up the slopes at Thredbo (“#shredbo”) recently and if you’ve seen the “Feed The Rhythm” video knows what snow bunnies the future parliamentarians can be. The God-like aspirations on "Evolution’" go hand in hand with standing on the summit, surveying all before you, so small you can blot it out with your palm. There are even some synth parts here, which mimic the sound of carving that fresh pow. There’s no feeling like it.

I’lls – “Let Me Have Just One”

The production on I’lls new EP Can I Go With You Back to My Country is stark and ice cold. Terse notes drop into the mix like droplets off a melting icicle, beats hit like rain on a tin roof, and Simon Lam’s ghostly voice appears is wisps like wind running past one’s ears.

P.H.F. – “Soft”

Ever taken all your clothes off and lounged on a shag rug in front of a carpet like the Burt Reynolds motherfucker you really are? "Soft" will get you feeling that way. Forget summer bods, the winter bod is where it's at, and it's only on show in the truest hall of glamour: your own home. "Soft" is as smooth as the velvet blankets you wrapped yourself in before sitting down for six hours of Netflix after you realised "Sorry it's too cold" was a legitimate excuse not to go out.

Lowtide – “Spring”

Yeah ok, it’s called "Spring", get it outta your system. But that aside, Lowtide’s most recent single creeps as laconic as anyone struggling to find the courage to brave the cold to get into the Uber on the way to see a show this winter. It’s properly gloomy, too, evoking nights, which get dark far too soon.

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Gold Class – “Life As A Gun”

Gold Class have had a solid few months of gigs, and if that didn’t justify putting them on this list, the fact that their particular strain of punk harkens back to dreary late-70s London - which in the public imagination had never experienced sunlight - should be enough. Adam Curley’s vocals sound like a dog drowning in an overflowing gutter — appropriate, given the propensity of our nation’s urban centres for bursting at the seams every time there’s a drizzle.

Ali Barter – “Hypercolour”

“Hypercolour” is, in a way, the exception that proves the rule. The video was well-timed: released when winter began to break and Melbourne, at least, got a few days break from the frost, "Hypercolour" is all about Barter looking towards new beginnings, coming out of her oppressive setting to find a stunning world of possibility. “Hypercolour” is the perfect song to listen to as you give winter the middle finger as it disappears in your rear-view mirror.

Sui Zhen - "Take It All Back"

The video for “Take It All Back” as Sui Zhen basking in the sun, looking out at the water, revelling in the sensation, but it’s all a sickening dream. Nothing is real in the world of "Take It All Back"; it’s an alluring fantasy of perfection, a mirage which could have easily spawned from the abyssal depths of this awful season.

Ouch My Face – “Creep Heart”

They don’t call winter 'cuffing season' for nothing. You gotta get a bed partner as soon as the autumn leaves start dying in the gutters, because if you don’t have one for winter, no number of blankets will keep you warm. Those in truly desperate times turn to truly desperate measures. Celeste Potter’s stalker anthem makes Sting and Ben Gibbard look idle; she’s going all-in to get cuffed.

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Jack Colwell – “Don't Cry Those Tears”

What’s more winter than a gay sauna? What’s more winter than crying? There you go. Have a schvitz, have a sob, wake me up when September ends and it’s actually proper warm-ish again.

Darcy Baylis – “Envelopes”

A lot of folks mistake dance music for summer music. Wrong. That’s how you get heat stroke. Dance music is a survival method for the chilly months and “Envelopes” is the barrel of brandy around the neck of a St. Bernard you need to get warm and slizzard in the blizzard in this last week of wet.

Terrible Truths – “The Coast Is Clear”

Terrible Truths are a little too #party for a classic winter playlist, maybe, but Stacey Wilson’s bass playing is as much a warm hug as any lounge room heater and Wilson and Rani Rose’s vocals have an icy edge. In that way they embody the opening contradiction of Angelina Pivarnick’s ‘I’m Hot’ - “I’m hot, I’m hot / Like an ice cream cone with a cherry on top” - only, like, not shit.

Jake Cleland is a Melbourne based music writer. Follow him @sawngswjakec