Community radio music presenters and music directors often have an encyclopaedic knowledge of local music and 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, Firas Massouh, Music Director of Melbourne’s 3PBS, contributes with a selection of tracks currently making their way to community radio through Amrap’s music distribution service ‘AirIt’.
Check out Firas’ 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 8 best Australian artists
Hearts And Rockets – ‘Feelings’
Short and straight to the point, this new offering from DIY punk sweethearts Hearts And Rockets captures the complexity of human emotion in a fun, dark, 99-second long, twangy bass and drum-machine driven ode to anger, happiness, restlessness, thankfulness, and all other kinds of feelings.
For me though, the overwhelming feeling induced by this song is that of love for the endearingly honest song-writing and performance dynamic of this very loveable duo.
Check out ‘Feelings’ by Hearts And Rockets:
The bottom of the cover for Moving Parts, the new album from Pinch Points, reads, “… Life keeps on getting stranger!” I don’t know whether or not this is an official subtitle for the record, but either way it is a salient point that reminds me of a great saying by Hunter S. Thompson that “reality [is] much weirder than anyone’s imagination.” Indeed, it is the weird arbitrariness of reality that fuels great imagination.
Striking a balance between funky and deadpan, ‘Spelt Out’ offers a creative critique of how faceless bureaucracy conditions us to think that our feelings of listlessness are our own fault. This song is a wonderful example of how Pinch Points are strongly cementing themselves as great punk satirists in the local music scene.
Check out ‘Spelt Out’ by Pinch Points:
Rocket Science – ‘Chasing Rainbows’
Rocket Science are back after a decade since their last album with a single that is at once classic and timeless. This is a song about a society that dwells in bad faith. Jagged, dark guitar parts punctuate an otherwise steady groove the same way that bad politics continuously interrupt our sense of purpose and well-being.
That said, I don’t think this is a song about despair; it is after all a big rock song with a rich groove, and there’s always hope in the groove.
Check out ‘Chasing Rainbows’ by Rocket Science:
Cool Explosions – ‘Glass Jars’
Seeing Cool Explosions play in the Salon of the Melbourne Recital Centre recently was one of the most exciting musical experiences I’ve had this year. Under the name Arrhythmia, the trio performed a particular interpretation of their original songs in collaboration with accomplished percussionists Nat Grant and Tina Xuan Ngueyen.
Attempting to construct musical patterns out of singular moments in sound, the five musicians brought a rich electro-pop/trip-hop sound to a space otherwise designed for acoustic chamber music. The delivery was truly captivating; the audience visibly transfixed in this immersive exploration of pulse and repetition.
The concert ended with a performance of ‘Glass Jars’, and while this live version was singular and might not be ever repeated again – and it’s a great shame if you missed it – the bare bones of it are available on the record, out there on for you to immerse yourself in.
Check out ‘Glass Jars’ by Cool Explosions:
This song is just fine, if you think you’re fine. If you don’t feel fine, then it speaks to you on a whole other level and reveals its true identity as a philosophical interrogation of the full gamut of human emotion.
And like all great songs, this favourite of mine allows you to move your body as melancholy leads the dance over a tight beat, and even tighter guitar and bass parts, before a passage of loose synth keyboard walks into your world, making you reflect about the passage of time.
Check out ‘I’m Fine’ by Ferla:
Ainslie Wills – ‘Fear Of Missing Out’
This beautifully sorrowful elegy from Ainslie Wills offers a kind of lament for her capacity to find satisfaction without feeling that others are having more rewarding experiences than she is. And of course you can relate to this.
FOMO is all too real and ubiquitous. So much so that it eventually takes you to a place where you are constantly fearful, regretful and evermore occupied with what others are doing, at the expense of your own presence in the moment. So much so that you subsequently recognise that, as Ainslie herself admits, “everybody’s missing out.” Why, then, does she feel like she’s missing out? How does one then find joy in missing out?
I imagine Ainslie to have experienced a lot of joy writing, recording and performing this song. And I may have my own FOMO about this. I wish I could write songs as beautifully as she does. But I don’t, so I’ll just find joy through listening. This is the best I can do.
Check out ‘Fear Of Missing Out’ by Ainslie Wills:
In this heartbreak song, Gena Rose Bruce’s pained vocals paint a picture of a powerlessness that is so all-consuming that it leaves her stuck in the backseat of a driverless life. The song’s video depicts this lack of agency by showing Gena in a driverless car going through a country town. She faces the rearview mirror, which symbolises her past, but attempts to look away.
As she does this, she is met with the faceless gaze of her former lover and the woman he ran away with. All she can do is to wish him well but she reminds him, and us, that she has just lost whatever it is she’s living for.
Her feeling of dejection is palpable and you can imagine her going breathless, isolated to the point that her soul has been ripped away from her. She spots the faceless couple one last time before they transform into an avatar of Gena herself, who walks back to the car and begins to drive it.
The message here perhaps is that you have to recognise how you have abandoned yourself in a relationship before you can begin to recover from the repercussions of its demise. Once again, there’s hope.
Check out ‘Rearview’ by Gena Rose Bruce:
I want to end this list with a song that’s getting a lot of attention on the airwaves, and for good reason. Part self-reprimand, part self-advice, there is something stern about this contemplative song.
It is one of those magical numbers that comes to the songwriter in a dream and it is because of this, perhaps, that it appears to be slightly uncompromising. But this is OK because it is sung with utmost resilience and buoyancy.
The song tells the story of the journey between personal accountability and self-empowerment. In fact, bandleader Jade McInally describes it as a song “about holding the mirror up to yourself. There is light in the dark. Letting yourself feel okay again. Rebirth”.
Now if you believe in astrology then this song couldn’t have come at a better time. Apparently, this is the time of the moon in Sagittarius, a time for reflecting on past experiences and for embracing the future. Rebirth! I do not believe in astrology but this is a nice enough sentiment and that is fun to entertain.
But the song adds so much more to that when Jade reminds us, “It doesn’t hurt to give love. It doesn’t cost anything.” And this is a far better lesson to learn from this song.
Check out ‘Big Old House’ by Jade Imagine:
