Had Bella Kalolo sung Don McGlashan’s Bathe in the River in the film No. 2 as originally intended, her solo debut might have come about sooner. Then again, the years singing backup to Fat Freddy’s Drop, Trinity Roots and others have 
only added to the maturity of Without the Paper (Bella Sounds), her first album. With the horns and live rhythms of her great band, the Soul Symphony, the all-original set is almost an anthology of R&B styles, from the James Brown funk of the title track to the Soul II Soul groove of Starry Sky and multi-tracked beatboxing of Get Ready. But with her intense, fluid phrasing and scalpel-sharp tone, Kalolo makes them all her own.
Hamilton-raised, Melbourne-based Kimbra dresses her songs in the fashionable accoutrements of dance music, with plenty of electronic backbeats and squelching synthesisers. But beneath the modern surfaces of Vows (Warner), the 21-year-old producer/multi-instrumentalist’s eclectic and impressive first album, lurks an old soul. It is not just the sentiments of songs like Settle Down (‘won’t you raise a child with me?’) that seem curiously archaic among the nightclub beats; Kimbra’s voice, too, harks back to a bygone age, and when the tempo slows it is surprising to hear the subtle nuances of a jazz singer.
Annah Mac was already taking home prizes from the Gore Golden Guitar Awards at the age of nine, so it makes sense that the 20-year-old’s debut album exudes the confidence of a seasoned pro. There are still traces of country in the warm directness of her songs, but really Little Stranger (Sony) is unashamedly teen-pop, from the My Boyfriend’s Back-style handclaps to the way her songs evoke a combination of innocence and newfound complications.