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
Bennetts Grove – Sternum – Sternum
Tracks (A-Z By Genre)
Indie Rock
body type – sick bag
julia jacklin – get away from me (i think i’ll love you soon)
liquid zoo – love anyone like you
oscar the wild – sunrise
selfish sons – the mourning
sonic reducer – julien
the buoys – kill you back
the dress – coming around
the velvet club – i need something too
Indie Punk & Punk
cheap-skate – brainless
council grounds – doubt
day dreamers – wreckage
lola – make things right
oh! daisy – just say
Shoegaze & Post-Punk
bennetts grove – sternum
epworth – wild boar
Pop Punk
brooklyn comic – parallels
Indie Pop & Alt Pop
aleesha dibbs – waiting game
anna dine – irony!
dani marchio – here now
kaitlin keegan – go easy on yourself kid
rageflower – i don’t believe in love
rose cole – kill that liar
Pop & EDM
ezra joseph – what i wanted
jem cassar-daley – cool girl
jewel owusu – small heart
Hip Hop & R&B / Soul
3% – all gucci
dheezy – la timez
dobby – ≠ (free your mind)
miss kaninna – handout
ruby jackson – 8 hours
st.bedlam – heirloom
yasmina sadiki – craving
Aussie Indie
alta falls – sandstorm
faisal ryan – she sighs
harley – tell me you love me
selve – run boy run
the tinderboxers – forecast warning
Downtempo Drums
ariela jacobs – wheel of fortune
chasing astrid – arsonist
cherry rype – playing with my dead hair (split endz)
figurehead – human
georgia scarlett – the wise folks say
margo mann – shapeshifter
mood spill – oh my goodness
tulliah – rest your head
Unplugged
azure ryder – i don’t need you anymore
bob evans – don’t you think it’s time – home demo
breanna – l.o.v.e (breakup)
brigadoon – master of cobwebs
ella ion – my love
sienna tenn – i don’t wanna kiss love goodbye
stella dunai – i love you too eagerly
tom woodward – broken neck blues
Rock
crash & the crapenters – dismantle the cabal
earl gray – simply sick
larsen – mazes
low monroe – desire limbs
reflekta – bigger than your boots
sasha summers – belladonna (this is how you die)
Strange & Heavy
broken earth – ready to talk
hotel romeo – stitches
rise from ashes – throne
same pains – shoulder
sunbleached – slow burn
the moving principle – lost my teeth
Pictured: Bennetts Grove 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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