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
Little Girl Likes Her Brain – Figure It Out
Tracks (A-Z By Genre)
Indie Rock
poison oak – out of touch
reverse revolution – crashing out
Indie Punk & Punk
billiam – unemployable
blowers – woke up at the pub again
little girl likes her brain – figure it out
so i says to mabel – matilda
Shoegaze & Post-Punk
bad bangs – interest
grub – goal post
heir to the squandered millions – how to generate a summer song
milou moon – like an adderall
park rd – floodlights
Pop Punk
all hours – forever meant nothing
make an exit – honey
sick visor – 06 camry
slowly slowly – parallel
Indie Pop & Alt Pop
ama – pasadena
daine – wishing well
drop city – alive
keli holiday – love was a stranger
lotte gallagher – lucky2love
meander – come back with me
redd. – i wanna (feat. cat & calmell)
ruby gill – porchlight
stella eve – under your sleeves
the golden gaytimes – keep chasing the like
Pop & EDM
bailey perrie – how you won me over
bella amor – this way (forever)
clancy – sunshine, you’re the life of the party
nead next door – sleeping with you
peptalk – harmless
phil and the blanks – when why
zara chantelle – toxic ex
Hip Hop & R&B / Soul
jordan briton – i’m the fool
lt – breathe
rops1 – no deals
utility – money maker
Aussie Indie
outfront – 11:40
rodney starfish – lost lost
Uptempo Twang
laura frank – then i’m ready
max jackson – fgl (me & you)
ricky albeck – famous friends
simon robert gibson – something to write home about
Downtempo Drums
adam gardiner – little bug
buttermello – heroes and knights
carla geneve – guard dog
charlotte meade – isabelle
cherry rype – permanence
clay pigeons – tough week
darcy lane – vampires & liars
dear tommie – buffalo
leuras – your bay
olivia c. dacal – take a video
possum – ask your father
pretty talks – take what you please
rod coote – salt of the earth
scott candlish – holding on
the gnomes – batteries
things of stone and wood – the final forest
worm girlz – funeral
Unplugged
sasha millar – stay on my mind
Rock
battlesnake – bog bringer
internet romance – glass case
larsen – anatomy
speira – hole
Strange & Heavy
as people – nothing
body prison – jesus wept
cheap-skate – cockroach
dreamspeed – inverse shadows
major arcana – bloom
outloved – wrong with me
planetfall – confronting visions
relays – body building
rise from ashes – fading embers
scum fu – state sanctioned
η conform ζ» – who have i been praying to?
Pictured: Little Girl Likes Her Brain at Vic On The Park, 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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