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
Kitty Of The Valley – Krautrock
Tracks (A-Z By Genre)
Indie Rock
aria nova – avoidant
bugs – crystal
concrete surfers – idiot
faker – nightmare’s coming back
kaitlin keegan – who does that?
kitty of the valley – krautrock
little quirks – moving on
lonely sort of death – lavender blue
sleepy – the wrong guy
Indie Punk & Punk
billy puntton & the mental health plan – hellish ride
cheap-skate – louvre
lola – came here to die
nocturnal animals – puff the cigarette
yendys – bad case of the mondays
Shoegaze & Post-Punk
boredslide – perennial
callistemon – hollow ground
japanese heart software – quitter
le shiv – gummy bear
s:bahn – entropy
uglieboy – exes
Pop Punk
forever at midnight – cold as ice
garden eyes – blur
outloved – overdose
Indie Pop & Alt Pop
dad joke – love is pain
fergus hogan – in my head
lt – goddamn right
margo mann – not love
pipin – could you be (sure)
rosalie chilvers – haunt you
sesame girl – prettiest girl in the world
sophia j smith – confetti on the floor
the lazy eyes – never will she know
way dynamic – officially
Pop & EDM
blokbstr – sunshine
darcy lane – tale as old as time
dj tr!p – bad boy
jewel owusu – i know you
pretty bleak – blackberries west gippsland
Hip Hop & R&B / Soul
and beyond – pageant
big deej – the chef
bigredcap – wow
juiceboxx – payload j
sister moonshine – everybody wants you
yawdoesitall – vendetta
Aussie Indie
outfront – adeline
red moon cowboy – instant noodles
salty season – sleeping
the sunday estate – call off your dogs
Downtempo Drums
beans – remember
charlie ivan band – gabriel
effe – faceless angel
fanny lumsden – mother’s eyes
grace turbo – glacier
lucy sugerman – friends to lovers
rageflower – twinstar
rian cobb – shitty weather
rose cole – in your arms (again)
the hunter express – may
Unplugged
iyah may – the sinners
rowena wise – unlearning of love
Rock
the darlings family trust – that’s what i was about to say.
tomi gray – zezame ztreet
Strange & Heavy
battlesnake – mud apocalypse
big noter – big noter (feat. joe talbot)
future static – ornaments & memories
my daydreams – the void stares back
rise from ashes – still breathing
sage – butchers block
the beautiful monument – off script
zuko – zuko crew
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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