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
Charli Lucas – Sunburn
Tracks (A-Z By Genre)
Indie Rock
adam newling – life
all day breakfast – perfect scene
dr. spaceman – love relentless
space&ages – human nature
the golden gaytimes – i’m not going anywhere
Indie Punk & Punk
day dreamers – space race
divebar youth – love lost
lazy ghost – milk bones
vipersnatch – ninaa (no is not an answer)
where’s jimmy – lock in
Shoegaze & Post-Punk
gloam – tunnel to our bliss
moon brain – slow monkey
the duke of randwick – waiting
Pop Punk
stone lions – florida man
what you’re made of – the secret world of alex mack
Indie Pop & Alt Pop
blush – my mind
charli lucas – sunburn
dennis. – keep u safe
liam higgins – colourblind
mitch santiago – bodies touching
the lazy eyes – always in the back of my mind
tonix – carry me home
tushar – spell
Pop & EDM
arky waters – take a trip
jvly – end of the sky
kat greta – audacity
marshall hamburger – star crossed love
phil and the blanks – the ketamines
tilly fenton – lucky girl
voh – miss you now
your best friend jippy – shaping dreams
Hip Hop & R&B / Soul
1300 – headrock
dheezy – split personality
nate g – blessings
omari – love lost
Aussie Indie
beans – my room
polly – goodbye africa
spici water – ice cream 4 breakfast
ventura – when i’m gone
Uptempo Twang
alex the astronaut – in nashville
dominic breen – just another day in the colony
kieran wallace – man in the temple
Downtempo Drums
angela rose – down to the bone
cedarsmoke – bored alone
chloe: the brand – madison (feat. medhanit)
clever companion – tomahawk
evie williams – july
hannah potter – judith’s house
jacques smut – wasted on the sunshine
jordan wilson – when we meet
leila – heart and soul
nathan coutts – movie star
nina leo – how do you feel
Unplugged
amelia magdalena – chrysalis
bobby uncle – america
cody munro moore – bega show
earl gray – orchid
ess-em – it doesn’t snow much on kunanyi anymore
jude pascal – blue people
lucas molnar – follow it, far away
rowena wise – home in this world
Rock
quiet neighbours – desolation
simple stone – one last sunday
verticoli – state of affairs
wave raiders – cage
Strange & Heavy
as people – so you say
dole manchild – back from ze dead!
frogpit – wolf
koh – golden death
ratking – rent/revolt
Pictured: Charli Lucas at Oxford Art Factory, 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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