Community radio music coordinators 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 coordinators to highlight new Aussie tunes that you might have missed.
In this edition, Chris Cobcroft, the Co-Music Coordinator for 4ZZZ in Brisbane contributes a selection of tracks currently making their way to community radio through Amrap’s music distribution service ‘AirIt’. Check out Chris’ 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.
Twin Haus – ‘Synthetic Egg’
You could lazily say that Twin Haus are a prog band, but that would be like splitting the difference between all the different things they actually are, on any given song.
Here it sounds like chamber-poppers Grizzly Bear had to decided to be a post-rock band instead: beautiful pop harmonies are repurposed into huge tracks of nearly shatteringly sweet sound that finally fade into Radiohead-esque mood and the gentlest lick of sax.
It’s every song with Twin Haus, each one as unlikely a success as the one before. I’m not even sure they know what they’re doing, but they’re doing it well.
Electric Zebra – ‘Ambition’
Electric Zebra might not have been around in the ’90s but they sure know the music and their take on it is more interesting than most. It’s got the roar of the loudest grunge but they know when to pull it back, too.
The songcraft is subtle and wryly humorous and it recalls some of the sunshine state’s best: Dollar Bar, Custard or Screamfeeder. Even if Weezer’s last record wasn’t a total disaster, you should have a band that can reliably deliver this sound. Electric Zebra are that band.
Machine Age – ‘Don’t Look’
Machine Age is a one-man outfit who has only just begun to demonstrate what he can do. You’ll see quite a bit of it if you catch him live, where his mastery of loop pedals, laptops and live instruments and a taste for wild fusions put him in the same league as D.D Dumbo or Darkside.
‘Don’t Look’ slow-builds to an epic kaleidoscope of Vangelis synths, soulful indie-rock and even trap snares. It’s a big track but still only a taste of what this guy will prove to be capable of.
The Bear Hunt – ‘Tropical’
We’re many singles into The Bear Hunt’s record, To Be Honest, and it’s easy to see why. A lot of bands have been reviving the grungy sound of the ‘90s, but where are the inheritors of the riot grrrl sound? Where are today’s L7, Bikini Kill or Magic Dirt for that matter.
The Bear Hunt take up the torch with a slow, grinding power, personified in the huge, heavy voice of frontwoman Bec Wilson. It’s thunderous rock and The Bear Hunt have it in spades.
The John Steel Singers – ‘Can You Feel The Future’
JSS have gone from being the band destined to be the next big thing to a band where you don’t know what’s coming next. Maybe nothing at all?
Sometimes you wonder but on this latest slice of weirdness they’re borrowing the best ideas from the playbook of bands like !!! and Jagwar Ma for an eight minute slice of disco driven dance punk. Sweaty and smooth at the same time and finished with a completely obligatory sax solo. Like I said, who knows what’s coming next – but I’ll certainly be watching.
Babaganouj – ‘Would You Like Me’
Given their trajectory so far I don’t think I’ll have to tell anyone about Babaganouj very soon. The band’s first EP for 2016 is stuffed full of infectious power-pop and on a couple of cuts they give it a warmly purring, shoegaze twist.
‘Would You Like Me’ recalls the sweetly carefree sounds of Lush or Swirl which I reckon will always be a good thing. Right now it sounds like alt-pop perfection.
Amaringo – Give Thanks
Amaringo’s reverb-laced psych-folk can be DIY to the point of being dissolute, but there’s a dark energy burning quietly away in there. Mostly they’re keen to float in the weird atmospheres they create, fiddling with drum machines or lilting guitar licks.
They’re like a version of Fabulous Diamonds or Thee Oh Sees that seem a whole lot less like they’d sacrifice you to a pagan god if they got their hands on you. Just way too relaxed for that.
Julia R. Anderson – In The Beginning
This song begins with an unassuming, folky lilt, building with an electronic crispness and an increasing insistence into something lush and huge. It’s startlingly cosmopolitan, especially coming out of Bundaberg. There’s a self-assured understanding of a whole lot of music that promises big things for the future.
Hound. – Driveway
Hound. have been around long enough to know how do a few things and do them right. You’ll hear enthusiastic power-pop that takes just enough of the edge off the jittery postpunk: they’re the two different inspirations that battle for supremacy in the sound.
One never wins over the other, but every now and then they come together -Lucas Colins’ vocals surging with the power and the passion- for a glimpse of Midnight Oil and a perfect recreation of ’80’s Oz-rock.
