Tone Deaf and Amrap are continuing in 2024 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, Matt Perrett, music director at Perth’s RTRFM, contributes with a list of Australian music from community radio you should be listening to right now.
Matt Perrett’s Community Picks
Grievous Bodily Calm – “Cloutbusting” (Delivery Buoy Remix)
Grievous Bodily Calm’s 2023 album Cascades was a perfect picture of swirling IDM-inflected breakbeat jazz, melding braindance electronica with virtuosic improvisation. Thom Emery plays synth for the group and also produces his own shimmery music – his remix of GBC’s “Cloutbusting” twists the original into a glittery ambient-leaning drum and bass floater.
Happenings – “Take a Holiday (Trust the DJ)”
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Fremantle five-piece Happenings have made a habit of folding whimsical folk-pop in with sunny soft-rock, spinning laid-back yarns about love, live and self-identity. They do just that on the first song of 2024, grooving through good and bad times on ‘Take a Holiday (Trust the DJ)”.
West Australian MC Kayps pivots away from the bombastic trap sounds he’s rapped over so well on “Buongiorno”, a collaborative effort with producer Calvin Bennett. It’s bouncy, banging and undeniably fun.
KUČKA – “Wasting Time (til the end of the world)”
Peth-born electronic music producer and songwriter KUČKA announced her eagerly anticipated sophomore album Can You Hear Me Dreaming? with this glitchy and glistening club cut about the digital chaos we navigate in modern life.
Noah Dillon – “I Still Adore You”
Fremantle indie-rock favourite Noah Dillon delves into the intersection of artificial technology and the human condition on “I Still Adore You”, which Dillon notes was inspired by seeing Bon Iver at Perth Festival.
“I got home after the gig and immediately paid $200 for a yearly subscription to the Auto-Tune software,” he says. “I was blown away by how emotional he made it sound within a folk setting.” The result is bedroom-pop crossed with stadium rock and crammed full of emotion and pathos.
Smol fish has just wrapped up a successful tour of Europe – they bloody rock. Before they jetted off they gave us “If Only”, an ode to young love and yearning that showcases the honesty, emotion and fun that underpins the band. Fuzzy guitars soundtrack a tale of unrequited love and hard crushes; “a very honest and at times laughable reflection on dating in your 20s,” according to vocalist Hannah Coakley.
Extra large in the honestly department but small on frills, “Carolyn” introduces Fremantle-based solo artist Tom Brown’s talent for cutting through and connecting. Taken from his debut album My Holland Street Heart, Tom weaves guitar lines and lo-fi production elevated by his heartfelt vocals and honest writing.
Formerly Fremantle-based new-wave artist Web Rumors is currently located in Berlin; she’s making a return back to Australian shores with her new single “Blithe Echo” from her forthcoming LP Travelling Circuits. Blithe Echo takes as its lyrical basis the traditional English folk song, “Bright Phoebus”, a popular hunting song from the late 18th century.
Paired with Burrows’ striking voice neo-new wave production and saxophone, the words appear considerably less celebratory and more reflective; the refrain of “echo, blithe echo” expresses the singer’s condemnation of the wilfully oblivious perpetrators of the hunt.
Yomi Ship – “Too Many Have Vanished Into These Woods”
Yomi Ship are a trio of magicians, working musical magic as they experiment on the bleeding edge of instrumental art-rock. Taken from their debut album Feast Eternal, “Too Many Have Vanished Into These Woods” features slide guitar playing from local musician Chip Hazard, adding extra layers to Yomi Ship’s intricate, melodic, and moody variety of math-rock.
