As the Australian music scene continues to gradually return to its pre-COVID glory, community radio Music Directors and presenters from around the country shine a light on the finest local talent doing the rounds today.
While many of us are adjusting to a new sense of normality after 2020, Australian musicians are still facing enormous limitations in working opportunities to support and sustain their careers. Exposure is more important than ever and ironically harder to come by in today’s media landscape.
The Australian Music Radio Airplay Project – best known as Amrap – offers Australian musicians a pathway to airplay to the many community stations who have long championed Australian music of all stripes. Providing exposure often before anyone else, community radio is a strong and unique network immune to passing trends.
In this Tone Deaf series, we’ll turn to the Music Directors and presenters at some of the amazing community stations from around the country and get their latest favourite Australian music discoveries from Amrap.
“Community radio plays an integral role within our musical landscape.”
Aeron Clark, Music Director of Edge Radio in Hobart (and presenter of The Map; Australia’s only radio show exclusively featuring emerging Tasmanian music), continues this series with Australian music available on Amrap to help compile a playlist of the best homegrown tunes doing the rounds on community radio for you to sink your teeth into. As Aeron explained last time:
“Community radio plays an integral role within our musical landscape. Fostering and supporting new artists as they arise is fundamental to allowing a musical ecosystem to flourish and remain diverse and textured, and the local community station is the place where most artists receive their first radio airplay or interview experience.
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“It’s one of the things that helps us shed the tired, misinformed idea that something must come from elsewhere in order to be considered “good”, and to realise that interesting and vibrant music already exists and is accessible right here in our local neighbourhoods.”
Check out ‘Stomach’ by Meres:
Scary doom-pop outfit Meres have returned with their latest single ‘Stomach’. A personal favourite from their live set for a couple of years now, this recorded version takes it emphatically to the next level.
Speaking to me about the song recently, Mary Shannon confessed her feelings of frustration towards the self-described cowardice with which she believes she approaches life. Maybe it’s because I relate so strongly to these feelings, or perhaps it’s the shrieking guitar hooks ‘Stomach’ is riddled with, or just the really bloody intelligent songcraft, but this is my favourite release from the Launceston act to date.
‘Stomach’ is the latest song to come from a session recorded and produced with Anna Laverty at Audrey Studios late in 2019, and Meres have commenced planning an album release for the near future.
FKA The Boners (in case you were wondering), nipaluna/Hobart instrumental trio The Bonus released their debut studio EP On Every Street, A Snake in April of this year.
Soren Risby, Matthew Carr and Cameron Phillips are known for their mesmerising live performances, typified by a slow-burning, supremely controlled intensity, building gradually towards explosive moments of catharsis. The group worked closely with Zarven Kara at Reel To Reel studios in the Huon Valley to successfully capture these energies on record during the frigid winter of 2020.
‘On Every Street, A Snake’ is a simmering exploration of loss, obsession and alienation.
Plaster Of Paris – ‘Danceflaw’
Naarm/Melbourne trio Plaster of Paris have been throwing their oestrogen across stages for years, with their unapologetically queer, feminist and DIY performances, weaving slashing guitar riffs through powerhouse vocals and post-punk revival drum beats.
An epic rush from start to finish, their long-awaited debut album Lost Familiar doubles down on themes of body politics, climate denial, queer identity, and states of physical and mental emergency.
Frenetic and raw, album opener ‘Danceflaw’ is a tribute to queer clubs and bars, and other spaces of freedom and safety.
Check out ‘Baby Tiger’ by Maple Glider:
Maple Glider’s debut album, To Enjoy Is The Only Thing, is a record full of brittle intimacies and effortlessly balanced instrumentation. Over plucked acoustic guitar or deftly weighted piano chords, Tori Zietsch shares deeply personal vignettes of her life, brought vividly into existence by her artistry and wry sense of dark humour.
In ‘Baby Tiger’, Zietsch dwells in a mist of apathy, taking a faceless lover. In her listless state, she is protectively watched over by Coriander, the sharehouse cat. “Coriander hates closed doors. She’ll always want to know what you’re doing on the other side. It kind of became comforting to hear her scratch at my door.”
Skydeck is Naarm/Melbourne duo Dominic Kearton and Mitchum Clemens. ‘No Change’ is the second single taken from their forthcoming second album Coupon, due out in late August. ‘No Change’ features Clemens’ deadpan vocals backed by an upbeat bassline and snappy drums, paired with field recordings that break through like shrapnel.
Of the song, Clemens says: “It’s the product of a pretty constant vacillation between indifference and outrage at the state of the world, the vacillation between outrage at myself for not doing anything to change it, and indifference from the knowledge that no little post-punk ditty I write is going to change anything in the world.”
The first taste of Mod Con’s anticipated second studio album, due in October, ‘Ammo’ is a bold synthesis of futuristic rock and post-punk textures.
Propelled by the tight interplay between bassist Sara Retallick and drummer Raquel Solier, and embellished with Erica Dunn’s enthralling guitar and vocals, ‘Ammo’ bursts with quickfire assaults and prowling syncopated elements, underpinned by a staunch political and musical vision.
‘Ammo’ examines why humans choose to cause destruction by hurling ammunition at each other, both in a small-time and big picture sense. As Dunn says: “The song sits against a backdrop of weaponry of all kinds.”
Check out ‘Psychic’ by The Goon Sax:
On their third album, Mirror II, Meanjin/Brisbane trio The Goon Sax gather their robust speak-singing, raw lyrical candour and ascending guitar pop structures, and take them on a multi-dimensional journey of musical craftsmanship that moves from disco to folk to no wave skronk.
Second single ‘Psychic’ is a slice of supernatural avant-pop – kinetic, hook-laden and touched with genuine dreaminess. As the band’s Louis Forster says: “’Psychic’ exists in the fragile intersection of fantasy and reality. A supernatural world you escape into until you feel reality’s grip on your collar.”
In the ten years since her debut album Tiny Goddess, Melbourne’s Roz Yuen relocated to London, back to Melbourne, where she co-founded Beat Collective, and then to Berlin, where she currently crafts her intricate down-tempo electronic pop.
Yuen’s latest release ‘Awakening’ is an avant-pop concept album archiving her thoughts, feelings and experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic, speaking to themes of racism, climate change and social isolation. Working closely with British mix engineer Andrew Hockey (Tricky, Slowdive), Yuen wrote, produced, recorded and mixed the album in their joint studio.
‘Falling’ captures her feelings of lockdown fatigue during the peak of Berlin winter.
Check out our playlist of community radio’s Australian music picks:
