New Music of the Day, November 11:

Lake South, "Cost of Living"

Staying in the antipodes for a bit longer, let's take a listen to New Zealand artist Lake South, who's released a whole album, "If You're Born on an Island the Ocean Heals You," about being from New Zealand and continuing to live there even as international investors have caused the country's property prices to skyrocket. The album's first single, "Renters," was actually explicitly about the nation's housing crisis. "Cost of Living" is a little vaguer; the chorus, "It's just the cost of living here/ Get used to it," could even be taken as an existential statement. And the singer's high, quavering voice, nearly submerged in a sea of reverberating synths, is the sound of a man barely keeping his head above water.