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
Swapmeet – I Know!
Tracks (A-Z By Genre)
Indie Rock
airheart – fixate
crocodylus – attention
dc maxwell – funeral suit
gimmy – running
lucky – biting heels
molly millington – death by a thousand what ifs
swapmeet – i know!
Indie Punk & Punk
cheap-skate – never coming home
concrete surfers – growing pains
cry club – monster of the week
hard-ons – you’ll always be safe with us
larsen – red flags
off chops – indefinite hiatus
pepper la floyd – dnr
so i says to mabel – just pause
the blamers – cheap shot
the oh yeahs – they them
Shoegaze & Post-Punk
callystha – i’m a big bag (to be)
donuts – overthink
horse – the gap
propaine – youthful time
Pop Punk
stahr – mother aura
Indie Pop & Alt Pop
gordon’s grandson – i never wanted you to go
michelle sutton – emily the psych
team building – sweet amnesia
the manbergs – i’m just never enough – single version
the mondays – u give me more!
Pop & EDM
2charm – girls
breakfast road – i can’t see enough of you
ezra joseph – touch me
foley – going easy
jem cassar-daley – clichés
magdalia – left for dead
shel chiffon – carbon copy
soveren – magic
telenova – fault line
the bloom – shoes
Hip Hop & R&B / Soul
bugz – the realness
tahkoe – with me
taiaha – writers on the storm
tiahn – more
Aussie Indie
i know you know – it’s not enough
mitch santiago – heathrow
nana klumpp – mundane
pacific avenue – tell me it ain’t over
south summit – on the dash
the great emu war casualties – wanna see you
trophy wyfe – bullseye
ukulele death squad – cooee
vlads – sand in my suitcase
Uptempo Twang
beefheart & mcquinn – do it again
hatchling – hollywood
Downtempo Drums
bb sabina – in between
damon mudge – flowers
dreamline – dear louise
garden eyes – speak slow
lara anderson – sidelines
lottie mcleod – important to you
maia jelavic – back burner
mumdeathcake – billy no mates
stirr – broken arm
tricks on tape – blink twice
Unplugged
abeny hayes – root to weed
dole manchild – the ballad of big ben
shannon jade – jack & rose
Rock
suitcase cult – heir to the apprentice
Strange & Heavy
anteaters – empire song
kamikaze roadrunners – we’re only gonna die
revoid – i hope you know
siphon – limes
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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