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
Sweetie – Modern Myth
Tracks (A-Z By Genre)
Indie Rock
among the restless – 6 years of madness
egoism – it takes two
ixaras – internet luv
sweetie – modern myth
the tryouts – chewing gum
Indie Punk & Punk
cheap-skate – dead plants
jan. – carcosa
prettypretty – seventy
so i says to mabel – you’re an optimal human being
the good kids – no parks (at the beach)
the ians – galore
Shoegaze & Post-Punk
red moon cowboy – goblins
Pop Punk
all hours – let me go
donni heat – pull me back
maple’s pet dinosaur – big mouth
rinrin – fever dream
Indie Pop & Alt Pop
alex the astronaut – music shop
bagful of beez – in parallax
billy peril – after all
david grimson – everyone on one
hallie – front seat
holly wild – so annoying
kook joey – miracle
lottie mcleod – take it back
mitch bartlett and the pool boys – i think, therefore i am
nick ward – jenny
rox lavi – digital waltz
skirtless – push&pull
sloan peterson – either way, i lose
warwick kennedy – heron
Pop & EDM
daezy – i want you
dani marchio – blush
teddie – cottage core
tilly fenton – rearview
Hip Hop & R&B / Soul
blokbstr – no submission
esme rowling – lady
jaded tv – starfish, pt. 2
kontrast – kingdom come
shadow – roundabout
Aussie Indie
pisco sour – never gonna change for you
seb szabo – magpie
sun after dusk – horses
the moving stills – benefit
Uptempo Twang
red williams – love to hate you baby
rusty pickups – hazy beer
taylor moss – gravestone
Downtempo Drums
al carr – colour to the flame
bonniesongs – scream
full flower moon band – endless summer
immy owusu – hard people
kaitlin keegan – panic attack
kye hallson – tired
laura frank – living my life in the front seat
mizuki – baby come home
nathan kendall – life on the outside
salt & steel – void
valley road – long drive
Unplugged
azure ryder – josefine
cedarsmoke – whenever you’re around
nyne – heaven sent
serl – why are you so nice to me?
tom woodward – bird food
Rock
dead lion – subterfuge
goonbag – waiting around
kaiyah mercedes – seventeen
lost plaza – soul fatigue
woodhill – superstar
Strange & Heavy
rise from ashes – glass
stepson – parting words
vault hill – curlew )
η conform ζ» – heart eater
Pictured: Sweetie at Wayward’s, 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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