Tone Deaf and Amrap are continuing in 2023 to ask music directors or presenters at some of the finest community stations around Australia to share their best Australian music finds discovered on amrap.org.au.
If you haven’t got your music on Amrap, what are you waiting for? Community radio uses Amrap to source Australian music for airplay.
Anyone can discover all the great Australian music championed by community radio on the Community Radio Plus App, featuring the diverse range of community radio stations nationwide in one handy spot.
This week, SYN FM Music Directors Sarah Davenport and Tom O’Brien contribute with a list of Australian music from community radio you should be listening to right now.
Sarah’s Picks
Commanding your attention from the get-go is the latest from Eora’s PENI PARKER, “Disrupt”. A punchy and vital number, and coming in at just two and a half minutes, Parker ensures to make her presence not only known, but all I’ve been able to think about since her first release.
Belting greetings of “Hey, Hi, Hello, I’m enough” into the pre-chorus, the track goes deeper than its glorious pop-punk sound. Parker is in a league of her own with this release: coming out of a hellish 2022, she has taken matters into her own hands with a number that finds strength in her own vulnerabilities.
More broadly, comics accompany every Peni Parker release, and “Disrupt” makes Parker one hell of a superhero.
Radio Free Alice – “Paris Is Gone”
Naarm/Melbourne’s Radio Free Alice deliver a slice of nostalgic post-punk in their recent track, “Paris Is Gone”.
The track achieves so much in less than two minutes, something Radio Free Alice are all too familiar with. Whilst their first track of the year, “I Gotta (Fall in Love)”, eagerly soundtracks the search for romance, there’s a newfound urgency to “Paris Is Gone”. Declarations aside, the track feels frantic as the indie rock group navigate messy breakups, with ever-changing chords and blasting saxophone finding its way into the chaos.
Frontman Noah Learmonth’s vocals solidify this sense of chaos, and wash over with a sense of déjà vu. There is a nostalgia to the group that will remind you of early 00’s brit-rock tastemakers, yet Radio Free Alice do the unthinkable as they propel you into the present and leave you stunned. With more to come this year, I fear Alice is not even close to being Radio Free.
Mathilde Anne – “Crime Scene Cadillac”
I first caught Mathilde Anne and her addictive indie pop set when she was opening up for fellow Mornington Peninsula act, Holly Hebe, at the end of 2021. Her name has danced around my music listening since, but is now at the centre of attention with “Crime Scene Cadillac”.
There’s a push and pull to the track that makes it feel like a rollercoaster. It builds, similarly to the ride up, before a quick fall into the pre-chorus with a rush of drums. As the rest of the instruments chime in, it begins to ebb and flow, and keeps you wrapped around Mathilde’s finger with every pullback. It intertwines Mathilde’s experience in relationships that do no good with her enticing vocals that make said relationships a risk worth taking. By the end of the track, you’re lining up (or hitting play) again.
With recent performances alongside indie staples Cub Sport, Cry Club, and Telenova, Mathilde Anne is proving herself to be an act to catch live.
In the latest from LÂLKA, “Romance + Rebellion” declares love right in the midst of a rave. It’s the third of a string of singles to come out of 2023, the title track of an upcoming mixtape, and a personal favourite.
Relatively new to the world of hyperpop, LÂLKA welcomed me with open arms and a pulsating beat when discovering her earlier this year. In her most recent shiny offering, the Meanjin/Brisbane-based artist, producer, multi-instrumentalist and DJ adds a sense of urgency to her vulnerability. She unashamedly celebrates every version of herself, including the version that led her to find warmth in an otherwise cold digital space.
The track is bright, hyperintense and ultimately a testament to LÂLKA’s longevity in the electronic sphere. If the lead single is anything to go by, the mixtape is set to push boundaries and launch her into the stratosphere.
Tom’s Picks
“Holding On” continues Body Type’s trend of emotionally charged post-punk music, and hypes an already stacked LP launch.
Following a debut album launch in 2022, most bands would be finding how to make their next step forward, where Body Type has instead broken the mould and are gearing up for their next album, Expired Candy, to release just over a year after their first!
With “Holding On”, Body Type weaponise their powerful vocal stacks, layering in angry, passionate, and longing energies into a messy storm of excitement that finds itself dancing with itself to a driven, pointy, and sharp guitar! Learning that this song was written through voice memos alone sets an amazing standard for what we can expect from the band!
You’ll quickly find yourself jealous of everyone in Europe and Britain as these performers tear up the stage on an international tour following the launch of Expired Candy.
With “Glitter”, Betty Taylor takes a highly infectious and seemingly nostalgic indie pop sound and tells an infectious story with sparkly instrumental backing, creating a dreamscape of sound that you’ll want as the soundtrack to your life.
I find this track so often in my mind with its confidence and fearlessness to approach such a common tale we have all experienced at some point in our lives. Through beautiful and floaty vocals, frontwoman Sophie Patrick calls out the fallacies of a former lover.
With only two releases you’d be amazed to hear Betty Taylor has opened for local juggernauts such as Girl in Red, Pacific Avenue, Teenage Dads, and The Terrys, but hearing these musicians live would show you that we have a lot to expect from the future of Betty Taylor.
Having a sound that feels so inspired from all corners of music, Betty Taylor is sure to find a familiar hold on your ears that takes you for an emotion filled ride, one that builds like a modern Stevie Nicks/Fleetwood Mac sound.
Monnie puts the snap, crackle and pop in pop. “Tell Me Something” tickles your ears with fierce vocals, taking the fight and winning it, and combines this energy with a beautiful ASMR-like instrumental experience.
“Tell Me Something” is fun. In a music industry where pop music can often feel impersonal, or manufactured, there is nothing more refreshing than the sound of Monnie. “Tell Me Something” captures your attention with its unique vocal stacks, where Monnie slides their voice in both low and high ranges; combined with the mixing of laughs, ad libs, and brief conversation, these fiery vocals blend together to result in a song that feels like it could be your friend.
Much like in Monnie’s other works, the lyrics of “Tell Me Something” evoke a feeling of overcoming, of winning, of taking back the fight and the power. Monnie expertly makes songs that you want to scream-sing in your car on your way home from a bad day, while still somehow being stuck in your head all day long.
Monnie and their audience are at a unique position, where it seems like we are all watching the beginnings of a massive pop sensation!
Hugo van Buuren – “There Is a Place for Everything”
Hugo could sit down with a guitar and play “There Is a Place for Everything” acoustically, and his dreamy vocals riding along the finger picked chords would lift you to a higher plain. This song takes ascension seriously, layering in multiple string arrangements and percussion to bring life and solace to every fibre of your being, capturing the purest form of indie folk that you could imagine.
“There Is a Place for Everything” is the title also shared by Hugo’s first EP that this song features on. Hugo’s warm and intimate vocal spirit is omnipresent on every track they bring to the table and captures a homely, nostalgic, and melancholy nature.
