Every week, I scour the latest releases from emerging, DIY, and independent artists in Australia. The best of them end up on the playlist.
Follow The Playlist
Listen to this week’s edition here or below, 100% made up of the best brand-new music from the best new artists in Australia – never pay-to-play, and always only releases from the last week (alright, maybe two).
From This Week’s Cover Artist
Safford – 639
Tracks (A-Z By Genre)
Indie Rock
all day breakfast – life’s a mess
billy cart – advice for a long and superstitious life
girl monstar – hate train
july morning – the canary song
luke francis – anyway
radium dolls – radio
safford – 639
sly withers – look down
the oh yeahs – breaking out
us vs. them – excuses
Indie Punk & Punk
ashpit – drivin’
atlas and the attic – the feudalist
demolition man – never win
headsend – and angel
itchy and the nits – secrets
moler – roky
moths – fast
nightshade and the fates – elemental – radio edit
Pop Punk
all regards – discontent
Indie Pop & Alt Pop
fjordie – every face is yours
jnr. – darling,
mizuki – baby blue
telenova – in the name of your love
the great emu war casualties – donut
velvet trip – tell me why
Pop & EDM
albi. – heartsong
charley – serial idealist
lonely computer – ripple
shitzulover07 – black dahlia
yorke – i wanna hate you (feat. alice u)
Hip Hop & R&B / Soul
big deej – tweed’s finest.
devaura – dancehead
dxvndre – in my bag
iwasoscar – bad cover art
mikky – champion
pinky ring – too fast for freedom
Aussie Indie
lazy ghost – chubby money
Uptempo Twang
tom woodward – dancing on a carousel
Downtempo Drums
archie – nine
aya – pretty little fool
bad//dreems – january 26
cheap-skate – chill out, dude
daezy – naked
dropsink – end of beginning
harlow reign – take me away
holding – in my car
local the neighbour – hard
romanie – anything or anyone
rum jungle – coal dust
the terrys – work out fine
vinted vineer – underthetable
Unplugged
wickerfaerie – i feel stellar
Rock
salty season – on the road
simple stone – t.o.a.
Strange & Heavy
we set signals – the end of me
Pictured: Safford at The Lansdowne, Sydney, 16th May 2025
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From here on it’s just an explanation of the genres. You can safely skip this unless you’re a bit weird about this sort of stuff, like me.
Yeah, I know, genres are a bit weird, but it’s a useful way to collect songs together that feel similar. I always wanted the playlist to flow nicely and I probably put more work into that than is a) necessary or b) effective, but this is how I do it, for good or ill. The genres are mostly pretty self-explanatory, but there are a few that aren’t as obvious. If you’re as dorky as me you might want to be clear on the definitions, even if it’s just so you can tell me I’m absolutely full of it.
These are all the genres I use, but they may not all be shown above depending on the makeup of the week’s releases.
Indie Rock
I put this first because I define this one as particularly higher tempo Indie Rock. If it’s slower, it’s most likely in the Downtempo Drums section below.
Indie Punk & Punk
Coming out of the Indie Rock section it stays fast (or gets faster) and also gets a bit spikier.
Shoegaze & Post-Punk
The fuzz and the motorik have seemed to work together in this section, especially leading into the next one – I also bundle them together because they are both relatively rare, so it’s easier to keep them under one umbrella.
Pop Punk
The guitars stay loud but it starts to get shinier with the pop punk crowd, leading us out of the noisier end and into more polished territories.
Indie Pop & Alt Pop
The gentler end of indie lives here, as well as the more alternative, guitar-adjacent (or just place wonky) pop lives.
Pop & EDM
Full on glittering pop explodes at this point, along with any purely electronic artists
Hip Hop & R&B / Soul
The tempo cools off a little here, but the beats become that bit more emphatic as hip-hop lands, followed by any R&B or soul artists.
Aussie Indie
This is where the overlap and slightly oddball definitions start – this might not be the best name for it, but it’s what lives in my head when I hear artists with that very specific, sunny, Australian guitar sound, with cleaner guitar tones, and often quite a rich vocal. I’m trying to avoid saying ‘triple J’, but it’s that.
Uptempo Twang
This section is very specifically for artists with both a country-ish twang of all stripes, but which are specifically a bit faster.
Downtempo Drums
This ‘genre’ isn’t genre-specific at all, instead being all about tempo. I have a line in my head which decides whether a song is trying to speed my heartrate up or lower it – if it’s the latter, in lands in this section where lower bpms live, regardless of the genre. All the tracks here have drums in them though.
Unplugged
This one’s simple – anything without drums ends up here, the home of the ethereal and the acoustic.
Rock
I know it seems weird to put ‘Rock’ at the end, while ‘Indie Rock’ goes first, but this is a section specifically for those lovers of 1980s Los Angeles hair rock and all it’s variations. While I think it’s awesome, it is undeniably a bit niche, so it kind of gets tucked away where those in the know can find it. It also just kind of amuses me to launch into it after the acoustic section.
Strange & Heavy
Saving the very maddest for the very last – on the basis that it scares the bejeepers out of most civilians – this is where either the more experimental artists live, or where the heavy and hardcore can make a racket without upsetting the children.
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