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
REDD. – life
Tracks (A-Z By Genre)
Indie Rock
gloomie – i would
joe mungovan – wasted
redd. – life
space&ages – cheapskates
the beefs – foreign lands
the velvet club – alone
Indie Punk & Punk
blokbstr – nevermind
captives – on fire
cheap-skate – thats gotta hurt
lonely sort of death – pinot grigio
mannequin death squad – k.y.m.s. – 2026 anniversary mix
my name is john – december 31
the bancrofts – bebop man
the good kids – on a leash
Shoegaze & Post-Punk
april elwyn – deep end
earth cadet – parasocialite (redux)
gloam – never ending
horse – birthmark
my friend chloe – grief
ups and downs – out of thin air
Pop Punk
forever at midnight – reflection
Indie Pop & Alt Pop
chloe: the brand – clothesline
ellen may – anxiety
emma yue – film set
geowulf – unsay it all
jaguar jonze – half devil
munroe – my time
old mervs – she said
patrick kassas – easier
the tambourine girls – oscar wildlife
the valery trails – fragment hanging 2026
Pop & EDM
imber – signals
pamela. – pandemonium
skyepaint – river runs dry
yo•shi – sunfire
Hip Hop & R&B / Soul
bigredcap – back on my bullshit
grace chia – aim accurate
jacoténe – shut you down
pallas haze – lady
tanya george – the devil
Aussie Indie
cheeky leash – we had it all
loose goose – distance
phil jamieson – reading keats in byron bay
the colliflowers – arizona
yendys – some things never last
Uptempo Twang
dear tommie – heavens on hold
hayden phillis – stick poke tattoos
Downtempo Drums
amber farnan – empty
big wheels – dear love
carla geneve – finally broke me
charlie ivan band – fait accompli
charm of finches – bodysuit
ellis undercover – too much to ask for
elsie lange – warm light of day
flowerkid – to the movies
georgia fields – night swimming
lara anderson – twilight
lizzie hosking – unforgettable
louella – before i go
malibu spacey – hard times, easy chair
new delica – lost in the land of azul
rose cole – years don’t matter
super free – tell me more about the dark
tamara & the dreams – beautiful woman on the coast in portugal
tom nethersole – the village
Unplugged
brigadoon – under the clock dirge
chuck sics – i wish
dieter horvat – rainbow
joe visser – please stay
Rock
blackwax – breakdown
the rorts – big decisions
Strange & Heavy
big heck – consider the light
falsefront 45 – words of tyranny
hotel romeo – fingerprints
lumens – cyber
ratking – under the blade
rise from ashes – collapse into ashes
sage – vagrant
the last martyr – rip
zuko – primal rage
Pictured: REDD. at Chuck Trailer’s CBD, 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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