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
Mannequin Death Squad – Van Gogh
Tracks (A-Z By Genre)
Indie Rock
damien binder – i can’t believe my mind
jane dire – d.o.a.
the jimmy c – fewer than everyone
tickets to space – true
Indie Punk & Punk
cheap-skate – shoot!
cutthroat kelly – thailand, pt. 1
mannequin death squad – van gogh
the darrans – neighbourhood
Shoegaze & Post-Punk
blokbstr – kids
lab rat – maine road
party dozen – euro stomper
the great emu war casualties – cold food ave
the halves – opus
Pop Punk
belgravia – ctrl-alt-esc
Indie Pop & Alt Pop
beans – dweller
bobby uncle – prince
daine – product of profit (p.o.p)
gypsy lee – i hope you like crazy girls ft evie irie
kat greta – i know what this is
majak door – quite like her
polybius – feel your love
skegss – stranger – mariachi
tamara & the dreams – romantic comedy coming of age film
the tambourine girls – trauma bond
total tommy – tailgate
Pop & EDM
alexandria – the jester and the queen
chaii – call me on my cellular
gazal – eat d!rt
jess humphries – birthright
jewel owusu – i don’t feel like myself
merci, mercy – butterflies
sharny – birthday girl
yes boone – nosebleeds
Hip Hop & R&B / Soul
and beyond – fist up (break it down)
chillcheney – let it out
dib – itchy palmz
j-slang – family man
Aussie Indie
alta falls – dreams
daysea – without you
oniera – sailor
vlads – amaze
zach stephenson – in n out
Uptempo Twang
austin mackay – wasting time
rhiz & the sugarplums – all over again
Downtempo Drums
angela rose – cowboy of mine
annabelle scobie – we’re not kids
charli lucas – drinking about it
cherry rype – blue tiled table, garden chair
chris vincent – providerman
lola scott – tonsil hockey
munroe – renew the lease
nick carver – stones you throw
nick keogh – cementing
ricky albeck – spend the night
roma – heavy lifting
stella dunai – move on!
Rock
faisal ryan – when the city had lights
internet romance – deep blue
larsen – starting now
pilot crisis – dreams in disguise
Strange & Heavy
boof heads – win a winnebago
domesticated incels – sleep
future static – swing
relays – cyclists
sage – you live a lie
Pictured: Mannequin Death Squad at The Lord Gladstone, 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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