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The profile · researched 11 October 2026
Alta Falls spent five years releasing singles. The EP tour is the reckoning
Nathanael Hubbard and Matthew Green have run their Brisbane indie electro-pop band without a label, a manager or a booking agent since restarting it in 2019. A second EP, Don't Make Me a Number, and an Australian run closing in December 2026 are what the five years have been building towards.
A band that began by failing
Alta Falls exists because of a group that stopped. In an interview published on 22 June 2022, Matthew Green explained that his previous band had dissolved of its own accord; Nathanael Hubbard, then working on a solo project, needed somebody on keys and asked him in. The first attempt did not hold. They decided what they were making lacked identity, stepped back for a couple of years, and started again from scratch in 2019 under the Alta Falls name. The enforced studio time of 2020 is where the pair say the direction finally settled.
That timing shows in the first release. "Take Me On Down" was written up on 13 April 2021, with the band noting it had been recorded in 2020, "when it felt like the world was pulling in multiple directions all at once, and the divide was getting bigger, wider, and deeper." The review called it an unusually assured debut. Brisbane — Meanjin — has remained the base throughout.
The Fire, and the habit of releasing singles first
The second single, "Into You", came out on 16 June 2021, premiered three days earlier. Aidan Hogg produced, bringing credits with Jaguar Jonze and Holy Holy; Sebastian Jennings Hingston played drums. Hubbard described the song as being about "the coming together of two unlikely misfits" and "the other-worldly feeling at the start of a relationship where your entire universe closes in and becomes only about that one person." The premiere reached for Holy Holy meets Methyl Ethel as shorthand, which places the band fairly: guitar-led songwriting with the synths doing the lifting.
"The Fire" closed the sequence in December 2021. A track feature dated 9 December 2021 described it as splitting the difference between melodic alternative rock and danceable indie pop, and noted that it completed a five-track debut EP of the same name. That is the pattern the band has mostly kept since — singles released one at a time over a year or more, then collected. It is a slow way to build a catalogue, but it has produced one consistently.
What the songs are actually about
The run of releases logged on Apple Music gives the shape: "Trust Me", "I'm At a Loss" and "The Space In Between" through 2022; the Wild Dreams EP in 2023, alongside "I Can See Your Face Through the Rain" with Michael Mayo and "Tried to Forget About"; "Everything Is Falling Apart" in 2024; "Time" and "Calamity" in 2025; "Sandstorm" and then "Dreams" in 2026, the latter released on 10 September.
"Trust Me", their first single of 2022, is the one that explains the band's temperament. It is about the 2017 AFL Grand Final, in which the Adelaide Crows lost to Richmond — Hubbard's side, as he put it, "in their first Grand Final after almost 20 years" — written in double entendre so that it also reads as a failed relationship. Green, asked about it, said he would rather be at a gig than a sporting event. Hubbard described the single's artwork as "amazing, surrealism-kind of work, taking animals into weird situations". A football song that hides itself is not a common move in Australian indie pop.
Where they stand in late 2026
The clearest recent record of the band's standing is their triple j Unearthed profile. "Calamity" was uploaded on 11 February 2025 and is marked as played on both triple j and triple j Unearthed. "Sandstorm" followed on 16 June 2026 and "Dreams" on 8 September 2026.
On 7 October 2026, triple j's Andy Gav reviewed "Dreams" on that page: "Dreamy and wistful, Alta Falls effortlessly whisks you away on a synth soaked intergalactic journey." Listener responses on the same track run similarly — one, dated 26 September 2026, described it as "one of those songs which means more than it says" and arrived at the band by accident before staying for the rest. A listener comment of 24 September 2026 on "Sandstorm" picked out its "catchy sound and just the right amount of energy". The reaction is modest in volume and consistent in character: this is a band whose audience finds it through radio and playlists rather than through press cycles.
Independent, but not doing it alone in the studio
The band's own site states the terms plainly: over a million Spotify streams, sold-out shows in Australia and an international following, achieved with no label, no manager and no booking agent. For a group six years into releasing music that is the whole operating model, not a stage on the way to something else.
The production credits are where they have spent the money. The forthcoming EP, Don't Make Me a Number, is produced by Oscar Dawson — whose credits include Holy Holy and Amy Shark — alongside Aidan Hogg, now listed with G Flip as well as Jaguar Jonze. Hogg has been attached to Alta Falls records since "Into You" in 2021; Dawson is the new name, and the one that signals ambition for the EP's sound. No release date for Don't Make Me a Number has been published.
The 2026 run
The band toured steadily through 2025 in club rooms: The Presynct on 16 August, the Grace Emily Hotel in Adelaide on 30 August, The Bergy Bandroom in Melbourne on 6 September and the Stag & Hunter Hotel in Newcastle on 22 November.
The Don't Make Me a Number EP tour, as listed on their own site, opens at the Hamilton Station Hotel in Newcastle on 6 November 2026, then The Lansdowne in Sydney on 7 November, Northcote Social Club in Melbourne on 13 November, the Rhino Room in Adelaide on 14 November and Lyric's Underground in Perth on 28 November. The hometown show lands last and largest: The Triffid in Newstead, Brisbane, on 19 December 2026, six weeks after the rest of the run. Stepping up to The Triffid from the Crowbar-scale rooms the band has mostly played is the real test of whether the streaming numbers convert into a room.
The show, now
On record Alta Falls is a duo; on stage it becomes a three-piece, with Sebastian Jennings Hingston behind the kit, a role he has held since the 2021 singles and which the band has described as both a live and studio position. The Don't Make Me a Number tour plays small and mid-sized licensed rooms — the Hamilton Station Hotel in Newcastle on 6 November 2026, The Lansdowne in Sydney on 7 November, Northcote Social Club in Melbourne on 13 November, the Rhino Room in Adelaide on 14 November, Lyric's Underground in Perth on 28 November, and The Triffid in Brisbane on 19 December — so the staging is whatever the house rig allows rather than anything built for the tour. The material available to draw on is two EPs and roughly a dozen standalone singles, with the three most recent, "Calamity", "Sandstorm" and "Dreams", the ones that have had radio support: triple j's Andy Gav described "Dreams" on 7 October 2026 as a "synth soaked intergalactic journey", and listener comments on the station's Unearthed page in late September 2026 picked out the energy of "Sandstorm" and the lyrical weight of "Dreams". Set lengths, door times and support acts have not been published on the band's own tour listing, and no reviews of the 2026 shows exist yet; the band's own account of its live record is a history of sold-out shows in Australia and abroad, built without an agent booking them.
Researched from altafallsmusic.com · abc.net.au · sillymcwiggles.blog · musicfeeds.com.au · itsallindie.com · havocunderground.com · music.apple.com