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
Bronte Alva – High
Tracks (A-Z By Genre)
Indie Rock
big league – well
bronte alva – high
kathleen halloran – wolves like you
mfv – turpentine creek
ra ra viper – andy’s place
Indie Punk & Punk
billiam – asbestos and me
cheap-skate – drunk
crocodylus – leech
headsend – do do
media puzzle – knowledge
second guess – no promises
sonic reducer – i know (in the end)
this time only – bright idea
Shoegaze & Post-Punk
dole manchild – little song, atomic bomb! (long edition)
soviet dust – kerala
Pop Punk
bailey perrie – ready for you
Indie Pop & Alt Pop
cry club – feel this way
egoism – catching up/yolo
kaitlin keegan – 20 something
phil and the blanks – gatecrasher
the great emu war casualties – don’t be sad
the lazy eyes – the one who got away
ullah – how to dance pt.2
Pop & EDM
blokbstr – no more celebrations
harts – rocking with you
jess humphries – natural disaster
new delica – birthday dress (getting over you)
Hip Hop & R&B / Soul
church – spin out
emjaysoul – swindle deez
grace chia – morning fog
mysc – larger than life
sly jones – don’t trip
Aussie Indie
all day breakfast – (i don’t talk to) anyone anymore
birdland – maybe lately
chasing astrid – endless supply
dice – cooler
the bloom – be the one
tropical low – healthy competition
tushar – lighthouse
Uptempo Twang
jacqui carter – tall glass
kyla-belle – took a turn
olivia lay – tram stop blues
Downtempo Drums
airline – falter
beefheart & mcquinn – yesterdays and younger days
charlie wilde – traitor
edie – fall of man
fan girl – echo grey
gypsy lee – snitches
my daydreams – deer hunting season
sly withers – the hallway
wharves – we can’t stop staring
whiskey jack – remain strange
Unplugged
meg washington – natural beauty (rebloom)
myma – said & done
Rock
cooper matthews – fable
reflekta – my love
slippery gypsy – poison love
stahr – yours tonight
Strange & Heavy
anteaters – popes
bad neighbour – rush apart
Pictured: Bronte Alva at The Lansdowne, 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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