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
PENI PARKER – god save the nurse
Tracks (A-Z By Genre)
Indie Rock
body type – eye is a mouth is a face
concrete surfers – again and again
huxton creepers – opposites attract
radio free alice – kick in the shins
Indie Punk & Punk
1-800-mikey – me and my only
c.o.f.f.i.n – think bad
creature fear – mission to love you
flight to dubai – inbuilt obsolescence
late 90s – river days
lonely sort of death – the well
the ians – hatin’ on the modern world
Shoegaze & Post-Punk
kirin j callinan – the squeeki wheel (gets the grease)
Pop Punk
peni parker – god save the nurse
prettypretty – fact or fiction
sick visor – spill my guts
towns – magnificent
Indie Pop & Alt Pop
club halifax – blah blah blah
eliza hull – what you made me do
erica avenue – saigon
harrykirby – written on my brain
jem cassar-daley – all i’m thinking about
noah bates – for you
selfish sons – come to life
Hip Hop & R&B / Soul
big deej – f wit a g
bigredcap – never be down
bvt – bounce (not likely)
ella thompson – dandelion
kayps – ships (feat. flewnt & jj vacant)
Aussie Indie
barr-nun – close to you
colleen ave – slipfast
left cassette – feeling great
nana’s pie – blind
pisco sour – summer
rodney starfish – forever
Uptempo Twang
big delicious – i like to drink
Downtempo Drums
bob evans – stitches – home demo
enola – adore
harriet bennett – roam (rum drunk, autumn party)
lottie mcleod – wednesdays at the waterloo
mfv – karpathian gruv
milina mihic – the matter
rayhab – one second
suede effect – washed away
the jimmy c – pacific ocean blue
yasmina sadiki – keep you
Unplugged
cate guirguis – over you
grace cummings – fake
issi – rainbows
stephanie milostic – ashamed to say
tom woodward – dream hard
Rock
large mirage – wildfire – radio edit
nightdive – burial
shadowqueen – ticket
Strange & Heavy
hotel romeo – breath
sunbleached – pain chamber
the moving principle – lonely and strange
verdicts – don’t have time for it
Pictured: PENI PARKER at Waywards, 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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