Tone Deaf and Amrap are back in 2025, bringing you the best Australian music finds from community radio music directors and presenters.
Got music? Get it on Amrap – it’s how community stations find and play local artists. You can also hear the freshest tracks championed by community radio on the Community Radio Plus App, bringing stations from across the country into one place.
Amrap’s airplay tracking just got an upgrade. Airplay (formerly Airplay Search) is now in your Amrap artist account, giving artists who’ve uploaded music since November 1st, 2024, real-time airplay data powered by Music Recognition Technology (MRT) across the entire community radio network.
This week, 8CCC’s Shauna Upton and Kate Lyons-Dawson select their must-listen local tunes playing on community radio right now.
8CCC’s Shauna Upton Amrap Picks
Arnhem Soul – “At the Billabong”
Not much is known about Arnhem Soul yet, but what we do know is exciting. This duo from Millingimbi has burst onto the NT music scene with gusto, releasing not one, not two, but FOUR killer tracks this year. Their latest, “At the Billabong”, is a laid-back ode to chasing barra at the local waterhole. With saltwater-infused grooves and lyrics sung in both English and a local dialect, the track radiates a relaxed, sunset-in-the-Top-End energy. Arnhem Soul are well and truly living up to their name—I was hooked on first listen and immediately went digging for more. Watch this space.
Drifting Clouds – “Bawuypawuy”
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I first heard Drifting Clouds’ “Bawuypawuy” almost a year ago, drifting across the grounds of Ross River Resort during rehearsals for the 2024 Bush Bands Bash. From that very first listen (and every one since), I was transported straight into the soundtrack of a ’90s Wall Street movie montage — in the best way possible. Floating really is the word here, as Terry Guyala’s smooth vocals and prominent saxophone carry you away. The track feels both fresh and retro, groundbreaking yet steeped in cultural tradition. At its heart, “Bawuypawuy” is Guyala’s modern adaptation of a millennia-old Songline, and the first taste of something truly special from this exciting new project.
“Deep Water” is a raw and vulnerable indie-folk track from Mparntwe-based artist George Ivens’ debut album Ocean Stereo. The beautifully stripped back arrangement lets Ivens’ crystal-clear, sweet vocals shine against a masterfully played acoustic backdrop. The sound is as expansive and soothing as the Southern Ocean that inspired it — melancholic yet comforting, like sitting in solitude with a warm cup of coffee on a stormy winter morning. Kudos to George Ivens on a thoughtful and stirring debut.
8CCC’s Kate Lyons-Dawson Amrap Picks
Wanta Jampijinpa Pawu, Jerry Jangala Patrick, MWNCI – “Wantarri (Gift)”
At the heart of Crown and Country is the voice of Wanta Jampijinpa Pawu-Kurlpurlurnu, from the desert community of Lajamanu in the north Tanami, a critically important figure in contemporary Warlpiri philosophy and research, a leader in cultural education and community-based art, and an international ambassador for Warlpiri culture. The track “Wantarri (Gift)” is just that: a gift from this father and son and their connection to Country, from a transcendental, reflective and deeply enveloping body of work, released to the world via ABC Music and French label Akuphone.
There’s an added edge of immediacy in this fragile moment they present together, strong in voice and culture, amplifying the everyday sounds of life and youth in their community. So much information is generously shared in this song, where Wanta crowns the listener with the Southern Cross. Composed with Marc Peckham, known professionally as Monkey Marc, having spent some seven years in their community of Lajamanu, he was also instrumental in bringing the beautiful video that accompanies the music, and premiered at this year’s Darwin Festival.
The voice of Larakia born and bred J-Milla, loud and proud member of the Indigenous Mak Mak Marranungu people, the traditional landowners of the Litchfield National Park of the Northern Territory, comes through all his music and “All My Life” is no exception. Direct from the heart, his life-drawn lyrics reveal the strength needed to overcome the generational cycle of adversity and trauma, in a powerful hip hop ballad that hides nothing. As he sings so he lives, sharing his stories for change. He, and brother Yung Milla, played a major role in designing the music coordination for the inaugural Community-led Men’s Wellness Centres program as well as crafting a song between J-Milla and men in the Barunga community, composed in response to the Barunga Statement, which was performed live as part of the 2025 Barunga Festival.
Encouraged by the word pictures of Aslan roaring a new world to life in her family’s favourite books of C.S. Lewis, Katie captures these ideas perfectly, and brings them to life with bold high melodies, mirrored in her unique fingerpicking guitar style and held together with deep rumbles of long bowed cello. It’s an outpouring from her life as a mother and reflects the storytelling shared within her family and now brought forth with imagination into melody. Produced and released by Mparntwe-based Dave Crowe at Sing Hum Records earlier this year, we see the culmination of the musical journey that Katie has taken her audiences on over the years.
