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 – Freaking Me Out
Tracks (A-Z By Genre)
Indie Rock
bugs – freaking me out
julia jacklin – the hardest thing
lucky – take it
old mervs – old friend
radio free alice – crying with you
sweetie – pay rise
Indie Punk & Punk
billiam – birdman rally
bugs – birdz
cheap-skate – raygun
Shoegaze & Post-Punk
blush – monologue
flindal – auburn
pearly stars – perfect weather (for a love confession)
swan’s drafts – synonyms for synonyms
Pop Punk
brooklyn comic – walk away
captives – beehive
llc – fairweather friend
maple’s pet dinosaur – child’s play
slowly slowly – sacrosaint
Indie Pop & Alt Pop
aleesha dibbs – animal
betty taylor – fall right back
hollie col – the gambler
jem cassar-daley – souvenir
joan & the giants – looking for a reason
mariae cassandra – splinters
moonwood – bite my nails
newport – fickle
nick ward – piano (feat. glenn gould)
obscura hail – pretend
Pop & EDM
blokbstr – kids
bugs – andrew tate
heterochromia – just like magic
jaguar jonze – kawasaki ninja
murphi field – ex with a benefit
peptalk – bad people
phil and the blanks – good life feat. bella amor
Hip Hop & R&B / Soul
becca hatch – black flower
kobie dee – my heart
mikky – expectations
Aussie Indie
letters to lions – every time you say it’s love
looch – see you round town
ramona sky – white noise
surf trash – burning tide
the cheaks – young
vlads – rolla coasta
woodhill – your sound
Uptempo Twang
danni k – always been there
kyle jenkins – better way to lose
Downtempo Drums
asha jefferies – what the hell
bugs – clear vision
c.o.f.f.i.n – 13 days
gabriella cohen – lovesick
iain t. mckelvey – dark hobart
olivia lay – living life like it’s art
salt & steel – the rules of the river
selfish sons – daisy chain
valley road – shelter
Unplugged
conor o’donoghue – dusk
leila – bloodstream
possum – lake song
rod coote – driftwood
sorcha – air
Rock
morningbirds – fly orchid
the vandastruts – stone’s throw away
Strange & Heavy
bad form – our way
planetfall – unhuman
sage – ascendent no more
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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