LISTEN: Alex Lahey – ‘You Don’t Think You Like People Like Me’

DO! YOURSELVES! A! FAVOUR! Yes, the caps is necessary, and yes, each exclamation mark is justified. Alex Lahey is a gift to Australian music in the same way that a serving of gourmet Italian pizza is a gift to someone who’s been eating Dominos their entire life. Although she’s only released two solo tracks, they’re endlessly listenable – guiding your hand to the repeat button like Darth Vader is Force-choking your index fingers.

Her first single, ‘Air Mail’, was a simple guitar pop number lamenting a long-distance relationship; it was irreverent, light and catchy, like Feist mixed with some Courtney Barnett. Now, for her second single, ‘You Don’t Think You Like People Like Me’, Lahey has stepped up the guitar crunch enough to snap the neck of a Bon Iver fan.

But, even with the pedal board lit up like Kings Cross pre-lock out laws, Lahey still maintains her signature wit and earnestness. The song begins with, “All I want to do is drink clean-skin wine and watch Mulholland Drive with you”, a line that’s sure to be grinningly repeated by the legions of Lahey nerds who are bound to pop up over the next few months. Then the chorus come on, catchy but still driving, with Lahey’s familiar openness and that smidgen of real pain which separates her from the pack.

‘You Don’t Think You Like People Like Me’ is a hell of a lot louder than Air Mail’, but both songs are like enormous arrows pointing to a future in which Alex Lahey has established herself as one of our country’s best young songwriters. DO! YOURSELVES! A! FAVOUR!

Alex Lahey will be playing some shows soon:

23 March – Old Bar, Melbourne w/ DIET. and Max Quinn’s Onomatopenis

26 March – The Hills Are Alive Festival, Gippsland

1 April – World Bar, Sydney

2 April – Shady Cottage Festival, Trentham

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