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
Suzi – Short Lived
Tracks (A-Z By Genre)
Indie Rock
ash acid – you made me paranoid
aydin sayar – stuck
dad joke – neighbours
divers – the mouse
holiday mystics – dream big (for stevie nicks)
lahgo – puppet
le shiv – for the first time
liquid zoo – can’t afford it
suzi – short lived
the vors – note to self
Indie Punk & Punk
bad neighbour – mean faces
cheap-skate – me 2
nancy and the jam fancys – higher than usual
ratsalad. – north west coastal highway
space&ages – anything (is it obvious)
the good kids – dirtbag
the phosphenes – dyv
this time only – papers
Shoegaze & Post-Punk
kitschen boy – mind melt
screensaver – division
sega jade – cold water
the velvet club – we don’t talk
Pop Punk
grass stains – apartment
llc – tonight at twilight
Indie Pop & Alt Pop
darcie haven – wishbone
grace aberhart – drown
lt – better
noah calderan – stranger
pipin – cowgirls do cry
pyjama sundayz – december
saint laurence – young anymore
Pop & EDM
billions – yes i am a boss
deepfaith – dolls world
gazal – daisychains
pines – chosen ones
tiahn – bitch face
Hip Hop & R&B / Soul
conflikt – who can i call?
dem mob – break bread
inkabee – bars of steel
kobie dee – aim for the stars
queenie – pearl necklaces
trials – cool world
Aussie Indie
calan mai – minimum wage
lazy ghost – winnie blues
spici water – powerpuff
the colliflowers – reruns
the good love – james dean
the nagging doubts – marine
Uptempo Twang
whiskey – long way round
Downtempo Drums
auglie – runaway
betty – notice
terra rouge – the cut
vinted vineer – fever
Unplugged
anna jeavons – i don’t own o’connell’s bookshop
jaymee – paper planes
local the neighbour – just so you know
muki – morning music
the darlings family trust – hazel eyes
Rock
atticus chimps – tv said so
mulga bore hard rock – big train
private function – music sucks (fuck you)
simple stone – breathe
teacher of the year – crawler
the vultures – repeat
Strange & Heavy
billy puntton & the mental health plan – listen here pal
divedown – calm me
loose fit – cracked whip
Pictured: Suzi at OAF Gallery, 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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