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
sleepazoid – IT’S FINE
Tracks (A-Z By Genre)
Indie Rock
big league – dangerous like you
blush – embarrassed 4 u
dinosaur beard – symbology of teeth
goodmonster – scream
sleepazoid – its fine
Indie Punk & Punk
back by unpopular demand – temu trump
cheap-skate – fri(end)s
public figures – cut it out
royal ratbags – hesitation
speed bumps – time loop
the darrans – i don’t care about you
ugly mug – fog
Shoegaze & Post-Punk
creeping jenny – linger still
Pop Punk
the world is not round – filthy soul
Indie Pop & Alt Pop
bailey perrie – mascara
brody thompson – stella.
hannah brewer – tenpin haven
le shiv – chain my heart to plastic
miya zawa – big love
Pop & EDM
akala newman – begin again
blusher – rager
go-jo – supersonic
ishan – hearing you
Hip Hop & R&B / Soul
chanel loren – growing pains
comar – pirlo & gattuso
ecca vandal – bleach
Aussie Indie
cheeky leash – thrill
in good hands – another day
the cheaks – situation lost control
Uptempo Twang
hayden mcgoogan – relapse
imogen clark – good while it lasted
rod coote – wander
Downtempo Drums
d’arcy spiller – bring me back
nana’s pie – i’ll still wait
sienna tenn – wish it was you
Unplugged
charlotte glover – adore u
frank swaby – dandelion
giddy – kintsugi
lewis love – felicity – demo
the settlement – best of me
Rock
whiskey – this is how
Strange & Heavy
down and out – messiah
falsefront 45 – pity
macëy – cheekbones
madison minor – helter skelter
wollongong – tiktok toilet girls
Pictured: sleepazoid at The Loft, Sydney
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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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