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
Bugs – Tough Love
Tracks (A-Z By Genre)
Indie Rock
bugs – tough love
girl and girl – it’s dead
joe mungovan – lucy
polly – better man
spike fuck – all by myself
sweetie – dogtooth
the rorts – big guns
total tommy – trapezoid
tropical low – sublime
Indie Punk & Punk
mannequin death squad – sick
smallways. – same
the pernicious – following the sun
toy saints – i want you to throw me
Shoegaze & Post-Punk
billy peril – tornado
boredslide – nathan
jaded tv – wot if?
jj ryan – trenches
karma police – black swan
lefty – waiting
nancy and the jam fancys – tear
nocon – reel big fish
sunsick daisy – bitter start
the forever party – against your head
the genevieves – sprinkler
Pop Punk
51st avenue – plus / minus
bailey perrie – messy but magnetic (this love)
Indie Pop & Alt Pop
among the restless – run baby run
charlie pittman – glued
ella minnow – homebound
epicure – jack boots snap
Pop & EDM
carrieland – ferrari car go so fast vroom
chaii – persianality
kid mac – game over
streetflicker – all day all night
Hip Hop & R&B / Soul
becca hatch – natural
dobby – 80,000 storeys
gazal – onion (stfu)
mikky – fineline
solar angel – check it out
your best friend jippy – seismographs
Aussie Indie
dice – echo
vlads – wrapped around your fingers
Downtempo Drums
aleia – willpower
alexandria – knight of swords
amelia magdalena – (in your arms)
anya anastasia – no sympathy
astari – pool
callum padgham – whatever i need i already have
lara buchanan – only once
mood spill – emma rose goes to japan
stunt double – kiss ‘n’ ride
the enthusiast – warheads
things of stone and wood – fade away
yours, georgina – dazzling
Unplugged
autumn sage – perfect little person (live recording)
danté knows – purse your lips
ess-em – ooofufyi
noah dillon – 2033
shannon jade – what do i know?
smallest horse – falling
zoë fox and the rocket clocks – skipty doo
Rock
boogie rockafella – west melbourne boogie
crash & the crapenters – the respect you command
day release – better man
scandal tree – twenty-o-six
Strange & Heavy
dead mall – rats
scum fu – i hope you like what i’ve done with the place
Pictured: Bugs at Shoreshocked, 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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