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
Raised As Wolves – Awake//Swimming
Tracks (A-Z By Genre)
Indie Rock
benny j ward – watch outside
dad joke – peanut
great job! – suck
lava fangs – nothing better
little quirks – game boy
organs – woeful waste of a man
raised as wolves – awake//swimming
the buoys – stay up to date on politics
Indie Punk & Punk
big noter – what ya swingin’ at?
billiam – human body units
c.o.f.f.i.n – out in oslo
cheap-skate – alive – demo
clamm – violent streak
purple disturbance – rob lowe
talk heavy – slow motion exit
Shoegaze & Post-Punk
as people – molotov
bad bangs – playbook
boredslide – wharfie time
gun laws – deals! deals! deals!
hauler – shot at fame
kate moth – run generation
krystal rivvers – peace & pride
moody beach – wifedom
oscar the wild – let it out
positive spin – footy (saved my life)
public figures – push my buttons
ra ra viper – sister
sunbleached – stop destroying the things you love
Pop Punk
bukowski – gone
may-a – writing’s on the wall
Indie Pop & Alt Pop
abby barnes – exorxism
amourie t. – choosing it
charlie pittman – in your system
fathom – record breakers
giselle kwong – this way
grapee – just so hard
harry heart – instant replay
munan – disco in my room
ruby rodgers – i’ll be in the sun
surely shirley – heartblush
telenova – tranquilize
tommy gun – dream on
Pop & EDM
2charm – making out
future shade – animal
gemma ylana – reemergence
gia darcy – white noise
pash – suffer
porcelain boy – violent & bright
robert baxter – brb
silvas – mog in the city
Hip Hop & R&B / Soul
double talk – who are the meters?
dxvndre – face off
taiaha – willy wagtail
Aussie Indie
free aviary – hold my mind
harley – when i’m with you
josh evans – above the hook
left cassette – shutting up
Uptempo Twang
fanny lumsden – traditions
oliver ashby – worth it
Downtempo Drums
anya anastasia – takayna
big wheels – to love again
eliza hull – better
haley holgate – let me go now
headaches – so bad
jazzy gold – pinky promise
le shiv – bontempo
lover – 4leaf clover
luke kelly – storm
margo mann – the worth of it
ruby gill – jamie
shorehaven – tie you down
the rubens – no champagne
winter mcquinn – frankenstein
Unplugged
omari – adolescence
Rock
bad debts – piece of mind
moon brain – midaswell
Strange & Heavy
boudicca – avalon
dreamspeed – corpse light
mirrors – devil’s due
tangled in wires – i’m yours
Pictured: Raised As Wolves 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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