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
Antenna – Rolling By
Tracks (A-Z By Genre)
Indie Rock
antenna – rolling by
ash acid – lmn
bad//dreems – night shooting
mega fäuna – bb there
old mervs – heavy in the morning
Indie Punk & Punk
cheap-skate – hatch
deadshowws – sleep
demolition man – heartburn
late 90s – ivy
should be sweet – beautiful dogs
the ians – i’m new
the vors – you treat me like an asshole
we are not robots – somewhere that i’ve never been
Shoegaze & Post-Punk
divers – head chef
spicy lemons – little victory
Pop Punk
all regards – resist
arrows vs. empires – take back the weather
Indie Pop & Alt Pop
anna smyrk – crying in an internet cafe
baby cool – everything
brenda funez – stiff upper lip
dylan j – kissing strangers
jnr. – but i won’t settle
joe mungovan – runaway
mum friends – only lonely
worry weather – walking after dark
Pop & EDM
albi. – crashout
dayshawn – entertain you
djanaba – doin 2 me
gia darcy – illuminate
heterochromia – ultra-fine
jazzy dale – tap tap tap!
pretty bleak – something she’d like
Hip Hop & R&B / Soul
chanel loren – square one
dublin rose – they say
inkabee – vibez
mizuki – just you & i
Aussie Indie
cheeky leash – falling
loons – feeling out
smartcasual – give
Uptempo Twang
ruby jones – nightwalker
Downtempo Drums
amourie t. – come to me
anya anastasia – burrow
betty – wings
cherry nova – life of the party
damien binder – winterlude
indianna – divine
julian wa – i don’t mind
local the neighbour – midday pilates
lucienne – high up in the clouds
muki – reflections
pete campbell – tumble twice
rosscoe frantz – raw and bitter
serena rose – wild one
the tortured souls – unforgettable day
Unplugged
chris rose – the rainbow song
goodmonster – when you least expect
kaeda daze – lousy actor
serl – nothing new
Rock
the hush – nothin’ for free
the vandastruts – cigarettes and champagne
Strange & Heavy
airline – total collapse
cvnt club – flk
la famiglia – hath no fury
permanent – redeema baptist
sage – media screen
scandal tree – twenty-o-six
skung fu – invisible watch
we set signals – collapse
zipper clone – drinking the light
Pictured: Antenna at Metro Social, 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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