Community radio 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, Simon Winkler from Triple R in Melbourne contributes with a selection of tracks currently making their way to community radio through Amrap’s music distribution service ‘AirIt’.
Check out Simon’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 8 best Australian artists
Elizabeth Mitchell is well known as the lead singer and songwriter of Totally Mild, and ‘Burn It All’ represents her debut solo release outside the group. An appropriate title for a slowburn ballad that glows with radiant heat like fiery embers.
Elizabeth sings each word carefully to allow the full impact to be felt: “Heartbreak radio songs speak to me now” amidst reverb-heavy guitar lines and low paced drumbeats. This track appears as part of the Split Singles Club, originally created by Milk! & Bedroom Suck Records in 2017, and later curated by Poison City Records and Our Golden Friend.
https://soundcloud.com/split-singles-club/elizabeth-burn-it-all
Rabbit Island – ‘Deep In The Big’
Listening to ‘Deep In The Big’ feels like watching waves, hypnotising as they crash to shore and wash back to sea endlessly. You can hear the changing tides in the central piano figure as it rises and recedes with Amber Fresh’s vocals drifting in and out of view. Special mention to the etherised ambient version by Andras/Andrew Wilson under his new project name Berko.
First new single from New War since their haunting debut released in 2013. Described as a “nasty blur of R&D (rhythm & detonation)” ‘Get In The Boot’ kicks along with a pummelling punk drive. It’s taken from their forthcoming Coin album, released in August on It Records.
Oscar Key Sung’s latest EP No Disguise was written and recorded across numerous continents over many months. It builds on his experiences as a sometimes solo traveler making new connections in unfamiliar cities and dance-floors.
Oscar has explained ‘Club Mate’ is “an entire song about the slow motion moment where you see someone who fascinates you, and they are just an entire story of possibility to imagine.” It’s carried by a crisp drum break, a tribute to Clyde Austin Stubblefield, the iconic drummer known for work with James Brown who sadly passed away around the time this song was written back in 2017.
DRMNGNOW is the recording project of Naarm-based artist Neil Morris, an MC, instrumentalist, poet, teacher, and new Triple R broadcaster, presenting Still Here every Sunday afternoon at 1pm.
‘Indigenous Land’, produced with River Boy, is an atmospheric, evocative hip-hop track fusing melodic loops, beats and lyrics that call for deeper widespread acknowledgement of the history of Indigenous people in Australia, and around the world.
YumGod – ‘May Crush Ako S’Ayo’
This sublimely spliced song is taken from BARRIO TRAX, a collaboration between local producers YumGod and Various Asses (Raquel Solier) for Next Wave Festival’s Barrio/Baryo Soundsystem.
Tracks on this release are indebted to Raquel’s family’s record collection, brought from the Philippines to Australia in the 1970s. Original samples taken from vintage 7″ singles are expertly sliced and reworked into downbeat jams and frenetic footwork rhythms.
https://soundcloud.com/yumgod/may-crush-ako-sayo-footwork-edit
SaD – ‘The Poets Of Antiquity’
SaD is a new collaborative project formed by local luminaries Simona and Daphne, dedicated to exploring their shared love of “minimal wave through crooning lamentations and danceable vulnerability.” There’s a timeless feel to this instant hit: ‘The Poets Of Antiquity’ is a gothic synth pop anthem for the ages.
Native Tongue is the opening track from the forthcoming LP of the same name by Mojo Ruiz de Luzuriaga, aka Mojo Juju, It’s an immense, resonant track that Juju has described as being “about longing. I think it’s a song for anyone who has ever felt like they are stuck between two worlds, struggling to find a place in either.”
“Of course, I wrote this song about my own experience, but I also wrote it hoping that it might reach other mixed race and/or Indigenous people who have longed for deeper connection to their culture. My Dad speaks Tagalog, Ilonggo, Spanish and English, but growing up we only ever spoke English in our home. I would hear him talking to his family on the phone, a mash up of all these languages and I thought it sounded really cool, but it never dawned on me until I was older, exactly how much I was missing out on.”
“I also remember as a teenager, my Mum researching her family history in an effort to learn more about her Grandfather and her Wiradjuri heritage. Now as an adult, I understand her urge to know more about her roots and lament the fact that I don’t speak the languages of my forebears.”
