Nobody's home, please leave a message.

Then recorded voices, muddied by static, melt into the looping synthesiser as it swells to a crescendo, before the first song on dust's debut release cuts through the tranquillity with the ferocity of an industrial saw.

"The messages were all recorded on an old tape machine at the farm," Dust vocalist Gabriel Stove explains.

The Newcastle and Maitland band recorded their EP, et cetera, etc, over a year ago at a Wollombi property called Edwardsville, owned by the extended family of the band's guitarist and saxophonist Adam Ridgway.

"It's Adam's family farm, they holiday there," drummer Kye Cherry says. "Those recordings are from years of the answering machine. Adam clicked it on and we were like, 'We should put that in.' It worked throughout [the EP] and became the theme, it tied everything together. It's cool, because it's his mum, it's his grandma, his cousins, his uncle."

The old voicemail messages, technological artefacts, form an ominous motif when paired with dust's take on atmospheric post-punk.

Why is no one answering? Has there been an accident?

Call after call never connects to its intended recipient - is it a statement on the human disconnection of modern society?

The band is content to leave this surmising to the listener.

"We didn't have much perspective on it," guitarist and co-vocalist Justin Teale says. "It fits, it adds a quality, and it's interesting to hear other people's take on it."

Dust worked on their debut release with producer and engineer Wade Keighran, a member of The Scare and Wolf & Cub, who worked on Polish Club's recordings before becoming their touring bassist.

Keighran brought his mobile rig to Edwardsville, a set-up devised to record sound while working on Baz Luhrmann's recent epic.

"I built a mobile recording studio for myself while I was working on the set of Elvis and it fits in my van, so I just drove that out there," Keighran says. "The farm at Wollombi is effectively the sixth member of the band. It's family. It's historic. It's secluded. It's ramshackle. All the best things to get creative in."

The producer is enamoured with dust's approach to songwriting.

"Lyrically it's almost insulting how good they are already, so I can't wait to see how that grows," Keighran says. "There's something nostalgically Australian about their sound, but it's utterly world class."

Keighran championed the band to his network and soon attracted the interest of Mark Bawden and Daniel Radburn of Rad Music Management, who look after established acts Hockey Dad and Bad//Dreems.

Dust, whose members will all turn 23 this year, signed a management deal. Now the five-piece, which includes bassist Liam Smith, will support Hockey Dad on 21 dates across the UK in April.

It's a long run of shows for a band that formed during COVID lockdowns and have been noticeably selective in their live appearances, only playing larger-scale events such as West Best Bloc Fest and Cult Classic.

"To do it with [Rad and Hockey Dad] - we've become so tight-knit," Cherry says. "They've toured so much, so we'll get a crash course. It feels like a 30-day boot camp, straight in the deep end. Hopefully we'll come out of it heaps better."

The band is the coalescence of two friend groups. Stove and Cherry went to high school in Waratah. Teale, Ridgway and Smith are Maitland lads.

When Teale transferred to the Hunter School of Performing Arts, he ingratiated himself with Newcastle's music scene.

The guitarist played with Stove and Cherry in two backing bands, before the three became friends and formed their own group.

Teale brought in Ridgway and Smith and the five-piece was cemented.

Dust had British post-punk influences but have developed a distinct sound, adding saxophone and synthesisers.

"We definitely had some inspirations," Teale says. "A few of us are really into UK post-punk, like Shame and Fontaines D.C. But then we started playing [live] a lot more and we got tighter and started to experiment. [Our songs] still sound similar but we always try to expand."

Dust's use of saxophone has enhanced the drama of their music.

"We were jamming and listening to those [post-punk] bands," Cherry says, "figuring out what type of music we wanted to make. And then Adam almost-jokingly said, 'I can play the saxophone' and we said, 'Do that'. We thought we'd use it in one or two songs but it's just magic."

Teale adds, "Now any time we write a song we're like, 'Do you reckon you could play sax?'"

On Sunday night the band will play their own event at the Lass O'Gowrie called "Dust-raiser", to help with the expense of their UK tour.

The show might just prove a springboard in the band's history, solidifying a superstitious belief that 2023 would be their year.

"I have a thing where I see the number 23 like five times a day," Teale says. "And we're all turning 23 this year."

Cherry adds, "This year, '23, was a big thing. It's always been a special number for us, so it seems crazy that it's all happening now. And it's Michael Jordan's number."

Et cetera, etc is out March 29. Dust play the Lass O'Gowrie on Sunday, March 26, from 3pm with Craterface, Busted Head Racket and Yev Kassem. Tickets are available online for $10.