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
Mac The Knife – Take Me To The Meeting
Tracks (A-Z By Genre)
Indie Rock
girl and girl – hell
heir to the squandered millions – here they come again
little quirks – she’s wild
mac the knife – take me to the meeting
rowena – scared of the dark
sleepy – clean clothes
sweetie – godzilla
the melodrones – never too late
total tommy – winona forever
Indie Punk & Punk
back by unpopular demand – chip the bud
bodyjar – sound of the stereo
c.o.f.f.i.n – sleep in it
cheap-skate – going4thekill
ghazza – the top one percent.
goldminds – loose change
hard-ons – my one regret
neighbourhood void – fight or flight
scumlings – untapped!
worm girlz – kills me like you do
Shoegaze & Post-Punk
modern ideas – everybody calls me except you
sex mask – raid
uglieboy – communication breakdown
Pop Punk
flavuh – waiting4
kevin silvester – it boy
llc – what is your name?
Indie Pop & Alt Pop
blokbstr – fuelling the fire
fvneral – hate u
genie baby – the roach and the mouse
ghost care – never knew
grace cummings – i’m not crazy
harriet bennett – cake!
jiwon – junior
kayls – untied shoes.
peptalk – scared to lose
sesame girl – kick in the teeth
swapmeet – halfway
tricks on tape – chi
Pop & EDM
charlotte macinnes – beast
darcy lane – everything is scary now
jess humphries – juliet
jett blyton – noise
miya zawa – yakitori
peach fuzz – all this time
thom – i won’t die
Hip Hop & R&B / Soul
1300 – clear out the room
bigredcap – ada cakes
brazen barbie – keep it on the playground
drizzz – swag
kayps – 765
Aussie Indie
dice – call me for a good time
korderoy – our song
polly – forget you
positive spin – carried away
rox lavi – berry girl
smartcasual – more to say
Downtempo Drums
ally george – eighteen
effe – see-through
harmony romsloe – still can’t sleep
holding – beside u
laura frank – how do we
merryn jeann – amateur radio postcard
olivia c. dacal – my tragic love story
queenie – vivid
smusko – hold on to me
sophia j smith – tell them
team building – when i dress for you
Unplugged
angus legg – what did you start in me
ben lunt – when it rains
cody munro moore – where the cockatoos crunch
gordi – quitter
Rock
among the restless – too far gone
spooky eyes – run
Strange & Heavy
big noter – f.m.d.
dontleaveyourhouse – more than a friend
hotel romeo – uncle fester
the beautiful monument – craveanythingthatstays
Pictured: Mac The Knife at The Great Club, 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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