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
REDD., ixaras – juliet
Tracks (A-Z By Genre)
Indie Rock
romanie – falling
the pretty littles – in our times
Indie Punk & Punk
cheap-skate – burger shop
dole manchild – song of the summer!
drift – four letters
molly rocket – another year
saturns angel – rapture
this time only – mick from the pub
todd prez – return to monke
xiao xiao – tips
Shoegaze & Post-Punk
public figures – honeycomb
Pop Punk
shorehaven – oh baby!
Indie Pop & Alt Pop
ally george – freeways
anna dine – anymore
chloe parchรฉ – silver bullet
gimmy – can’t be high all the time
holly hebe – swimsuit
leuras – 18th
may-a – last man on earth
redd. – juliet
safford – in a pinch
the petrov affair – men are a luxury item
zsa zsa – blowjob
Pop & EDM
aliya – supposed to be
bad hoax – home (room recording 01.26)
cherry rype – rave angel
dลgรฆgรฉ – the future, you’ll love it
girl from nowhere – orange light
hazel – turn the lights down
heiress – escape artist
kaeda daze – habit
lara buchanan – gold
pash – ricochet
prchr. – little white lies
the mondays – whatever the rain decides to do.
Hip Hop & R&B / Soul
dobby – good for nothing – single version
drizzz – priceless
gian santoro – dinner 4 2
horatio luna – leopard love
jay kira – take me away
kobie dee – no disrespect
madame wu – what happens in the home
miss kaninna – mob ties
miya zawa – calypso
ruby jackson – against the wall
sterling – son of spring ™
Aussie Indie
franjapan – what would i say?
highline – changing tides
mid drift – easily
the sooks – wasting all my time
the terrys – underneath it all
vlads – daisy
Uptempo Twang
ellis king – hold my breath
jordi woods – angry
things of stone and wood – the windmills turn
Downtempo Drums
anna smyrk – line by line
bad//dreems – irish airman
chloe violette – colourfast
inaugural – kill your darlings
moonsea – i’ll kill you if you die before me
ms.d – sear – radio edit
tahkoe – good luck!
Unplugged
crash & the crapenters – american gestapo
dennis. – i fkn love u
roller one – motorsports
Rock
fur blossom – goldsmith
hyena smyle – 21st century basic bitch
northern lights – looking down
starcrazy – prove myself
Strange & Heavy
morris – internal mutter
Pictured: REDD. at Chuck Trailer’s, 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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