Community radio music presenters and music directors often have an encyclopaedic knowledge of local music, Australian artists, and possess an insatiable thirst to keep their ears ahead of the curve.

So in this Tone Deaf series, the Australian Music Radio Airplay Project (Amrap) invites music directors to highlight new Aussie tunes that you might have missed.

In this edition, Aeron Clark, the Music Director of Tasmania’s Edge Radio, contributes with a selection of tracks currently making their way to community radio through Amrap’s music distribution service ‘AirIt’.

Check out Aeron’s selections below and if you’re a musician you can apply here to have your music distributed for free to community radio on Amrap’s AirIt.

This week’s 7 best Australian artists

Hearts And Rockets – ‘New Nightmare’

Hearts and Rockets’ second album Power, makes me wanna dance. Hard. But I have one very important question. How freaking great is it to hear Kalindy Williams slinging an axe?! She and Kurt Eckardt reeled me in long ago with their trademark mix of chunky bass fuzz and 808 clatter, but the addition of guitar on this album has me completely hooked.

Spooky gloom banger ‘New Nightmare’ is both an album highlight, and the most likely reason I’m currently plagued by paranoid visions of tooth trauma that I thought were buried long ago.

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Check out ‘New Nightmare’ by Hearts And Rockets:

YouTube VideoPlay

PARKER – ‘Can’t Keep Waiting’

I’ve become so accustomed to viewing Tash Parker as a folk artist that I was completely blindsided by ‘Can’t Keep Waiting’, the debut single from her new electronic art-pop project PARKER.

A delicate and airy intro gives way to heavy percussion and nuanced synth layers that swell and retreat with remarkable precision around Parker’s tender vocals.

Not good enough for you? Well, turns out Parker also a gun at video art, and the accompanying clip, co-directed with Jaymis Loveday, has been cleaning up on the international awards circuit. Leave some talent for the rest of us, Tash?

Check out ‘Can’t Keep Waiting’ by PARKER:

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Elizabeth – ‘Meander’

Elizabeth’s debut solo album, The Wonderful World Of Nature, is everything. It. Is. Everything. She sings of desire, infatuation, and heartache with unnerving honesty and openness. The language Elizabeth uses is straight-forward and unembellished, and it’s exactly this which makes her songs so poetic and affecting.

‘Meander’ is lush and warm, an emotional haze over which Elizabeth’s voice shimmers radiantly as she describes a distraction fling and its inevitable decline.

Check out ‘Meander’ by Elizabeth:

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imbi the girl – ‘Peaches & Scream (feat. Genesis Owusu)’

Talk about a dream team. imbi the girl is a poet with a voice like butter, whose unique blend of melodic hip-hop, R&B, soul and spoken word oozes authenticity and invites connection. ‘Peaches & Scream’ is almost sickeningly-smooth, as are the guest vocals of Canberran powerhouse Genesis Owusu when they slide in half way through.

This sultry ode to self-love ends with a monologue of realisation, which, in true imbi style, sees them vow to spend less time on the “idea” of another person, and more time looking out for themself.

Check out ‘Peaches & Scream (feat. Genesis Owusu)’ by imbi the girl:

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Quivers – ‘When It Breaks’

Quivers’ new single ‘When It Breaks’ has a golden jangle that glows so brightly I’m honestly a little bit worried I might get sunburnt listening to it. The band, led by Sam J Nicholson, have a knack for taking dark subject matter and moulding it into euphoric and uplifting pop.

It wouldn’t be a Quivers song without a grin-inducing group chorus, and this one delivers emphatically. If you don’t feel the urge to sing along, you’re dead inside for sure.

Check out ‘When It Breaks’ by Quivers:

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Obscura Hail – ‘Goth’

Obscura Hail are Sean Conran, Tamara Issa and Steven West. They’ve just released their newest EP, ‘Zero’, a beguiling collection of existentialist indie pop songs.

Conran’s lyrics peer deep into the ontological realm but are nestled within an intricate framework of sublime harmonies. ‘Goth’ is a deceptively dense composition, blending acoustic and electronic percussion with a driving bassline and richly layered vocals. Despite its thematic weight, it’s ridiculously catchy.

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Check out ‘Goth’ by Obscura Hail:

Bert Shirt – ‘621 Ocean Junction’

Bert Shirt’s debut EP, Late Night Shopping. is a heady mixture of sun-bleached walls of sound, tequila sunrises, and the all too familiar ennui triggered by a visit to your nearest desolate shopping complex.

Isobel Austin-Andrews, Nick Shegog and Trent Thomas have distilled the unconditional love of Hobart’s golden retriever population into a blistering hot pink cassette tape, perfect for your next drive up the coast.

‘621 Ocean Junction’ is the story of a man who yearns for hair like Magnum, P.I., but just can’t seem to drag himself away from the ready meal aisle.

Check out ‘621 Ocean Junction’ by Bert Shirt:

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