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
Jean Elliot – Lennon
Tracks (A-Z By Genre)
Indie Rock
dc maxwell – baby put the gun down
jean elliot – lennon
party dozen – special unit
swapmeet – 2 c u
teacher of the year – trapped
Indie Punk & Punk
airheart – disconnect
alex fears – binary
cheap-skate – save me
clamm – the licensing
eden and the gardeners – red flag
mertas – one and only
physical copy – benoit frankstons fruit & vegetable market
ratsalad. – art school dropout (jaz origin story)
the ians – gumption
Shoegaze & Post-Punk
lonely sort of death – cuts like a knife
loose fit – feel ya shiver
pet moon – pot snake
Pop Punk
besties – deadmau5
goodbye, august – insulin
tonix – stupid thing i’ve done
Indie Pop & Alt Pop
cody munro moore – is it the same love?
crow – skyline
dusken lights – state of disarray
egoism – time for the needy
imogen clark – turnkey man
jeane – wildfires
obscura hail – never knowing
pash – solid ground
scratching – fwu
the forever party – angels
the heart shaped aces – weshouldgoout
the tin knees – you make me nervous [and i like it]
the tortured souls – no tomorrows
Pop & EDM
albi. – nervous system
and beyond – simulated
bobby uncle – call la la
Hip Hop & R&B / Soul
bugz – criminal thoughts
elaura – cut my hair
jacoténe – tell me (i heard it from my father)
lunar lagoon – ktf
mazbou q – show up, show out
saint lane – soulmate.
Aussie Indie
aloe vera – touch me
fool nelson – keepsake
mitch santiago – firefly
nana’s pie – lift my head
red moon cowboy – vr girl
the lazy eyes – how does it feel to be in love?
vlads – franken$tein
Uptempo Twang
Southey – Got It All
Downtempo Drums
amber farnan – when i get better
azure – friend
baby cool – sacred
jade rich – how we were
kook joey – puppy love
queenie – whirlwind
roller one – bonny bird
southey – got it all
stelle – people pleaser tendencies
this new light – tell me that im better
vancouver sleep clinic – the way you do
worry weather – catch me on the breeze
yours, georgina – keepers
Rock
bring back the kane – she dreams tourmaline
jollee – i want you
laguna – myrtle
the witching hour – cultivate
woodhill – comin’ over
Strange & Heavy
larsen – pepe silvia
Pictured: Jean Elliot at The Trocadero Room, 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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