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
Joan & the Giants – Mamma Don’t Cry
Tracks (A-Z By Genre)
Indie Rock
egoism – summer again, sung to the end
ghost care – so long
larsen – write off
max aurora & the southern lights – how i know it’s right
mertas – no show
ruby fields – firepile
sonic reducer – song for steven
swapmeet – sand
teen jesus and the jean teasers – go waste my time
the sunday estate – waiting for the car
Indie Punk & Punk
blood thinners – trifecta
cheap-skate – sleepwalker
chimers – red chair
crocodylus – overthinking
morris – get a dog up ya
problem green – left out
smallways. – what i’m doin’
snailgun – straight ahead
towns – say it all
Shoegaze & Post-Punk
divebar youth – selfish
Indie Pop & Alt Pop
adam newling – kiss you twice
azure ryder – north star
daphnie – 28
darcy lane – push through
hannah brewer – yes, man
iain t. mckelvey – open fire
indigo hue – broken glass
jeane – good god (what have we become)
joan & the giants – mamma don’t cry
maddy jane – miss everything
rowena wise – blood ties
stelle – back to the flame
the goldhearts – original nation
Pop & EDM
blokbstr – sneaky mofos
charlotte macinnes – celestial
ezra joseph – fantasize
friday* – just you
genesis owusu – life keeps going
sam sly – the truman show
Hip Hop & R&B / Soul
cking – smoke with us
dallas woods – voices of resistance
ella thompson – promise to keep
evergreen mc – evergreen mc – 420 cypher #3
last armor – venom
ruby jackson – usual type
yo•shi – illusions
Aussie Indie
kenny drives – west coast
smartcasual – cashies
sugarlook – big blue
sugarworld – petals in a path
swan’s drafts – nothing to do on sunday
Downtempo Drums
baby cool – sky
betty – nook
christina castle – astral plane
fan girl – submarine
lily papas – nevada high
ricky albeck – sound of drums
staylucky – carousel
the remotes – wordless
vancouver sleep clinic – only human
Unplugged
anyhoo – whatever it‘s meant to mean
beefheart & mcquinn – waiting for the rain
jean elliot – hole in her head
Rock
hot machine – sweet lick
kathleen halloran – showstopper
permanent – perish me
selve – desire
Strange & Heavy
broken earth – shiver
Pictured: Joan & the Giants at The Lord Gladstone, 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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