Australia’s Summer Flake’s AKA Stephanie Crase, distinct sound is abundant on Hello Friends. The opening track “Son of a Gun” begins with the sweetest of melodies, before swiftly unfolding into an unexpected wall of searing guitars. It’s followed by the winding “Shoot and Score,” with straight-shooting lyrics not tied to any place nor time but that somehow are comfortingly familiar. Later, “Wine Won’t Wash Away” dives into a combination of cacophonous guitars and bright-but-brooding vocals.

Drenched in a timelessness of reverb, Summer Flake’s songs are transcendent – moving through the dreamy wings of pop, via the Crystals and the Paris Sisters, down the lonely byways of Karen Dalton and Laurel Canyon folkies, ambling up into the grubby 90s of Hole and Sonic Youth, before lingering out finally into the sunshine of other dream-pop contemporaries like Best Coast or Mac Demarco.

Hello Friends continues Crase’s tendency for the thoughtful arrangements, ’90s-tinged frankness and dizzying harmonies that have led her from strength to strength, this time adding a deeper layer of emotional reflection to an already enduring sound.

Hello Friends Tracklisting

01. Son Of A Gun
02. Shoot And Score
03. I’d Ask You Not To Look Away
04. Make Your Way Back To Me
05. Tumbling Down
06. So Long
07. Wine Won’t Wash Away
08. Satellite
09. Look How Far We’ve Come
10. Mess