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, Aeron Clark, Music Director at Edge Radio 99.3FM, contributes with a list of Australian music from community radio you should be listening to right now.
Aeron Clark’s Community Picks
“I’m An Art Prize” is the lead single from Nipaluna/Hobart post-punk trio Teens’ forthcoming self-titled debut album. It announces itself brashly, with a conspicuous yelp of delayed guitar, and proceeds to swagger. Propelled by a determined bass line, jagged guitars strut a tense path through shadowy vocals, chugging ominously towards a dazzling eruption of frenetic noise. “I’m An Art Prize” showcases Teen’s aptitude for an ominous, sustained build paired with a chaotic release, bursting with so much energy that it almost tears itself to pieces.
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Rowena Wise’s debut album Senseless Acts of Beauty is a masterful and endearing collection of musings on perspective. Possessing a dark and insightful wit, Wise dissects moments of her life with stark intimacy, crafting an intensely confessional album that gives us a view into deep loss and alienation, while also allowing us to share in the strength and wisdom gleaned from these experiences. Recent single and album closer “Gone” is a warm and candid rumination on materialism and the fragile transience of existence.
FAIRTRADE NARCOTICS – “Cerulean”
I have a problem. Whenever I hear or see the word cerulean I am plagued by images from the X-Files episode ‘Pusher’. IYKYK. But thanks to this sublime offering from genre bending Naarm/Melbourne jazz-rock outfit FAIRTRADE NARCOTICS, that problem might soon be remedied. “Cerulean” is the first single from the band’s forthcoming self-titled album. It is utterly captivating, held together by an indispensable, cyclical groove, and paired with an equally enthralling single take video bathed in its namesake colour.
Godrich describes his debut EP FFFear as “a project born from its namesake.” Over the last four years, while helping countless others across lutruwita bring their music to life, Charlie Pyecroft has cycled repeatedly through the creation and abandonment of his own work. On FFFear, Pyecroft reveals meticulously constructed, thoughtful soundscapes. “Lighttten Up” is an ethereal masterpiece, with Godrich layering subtle glitch and grating chimes into a deftly nuanced haze that is completely mesmerising.
Opening with a luminous, ringing guitar melody, the debut single from Tassie experimental popgaze visionaries Dvrkworld is a reverberant, swirling blend of fuzz and light. Born from the depths of profound personal loss, “Lotus” guides us on a journey through acceptance and rebirth, its rich, flowing layers constantly lifting us higher and higher, until we emerge alongside the band ripe with newfound strength and determination. A glimpse into Dvrkworld’s constantly evolving sound and immense potential, “Lotus” is a resoundingly joyous listening experience.
One of the most generous and driven people in the Tasmanian music community, we’re used to hearing Grace Chia speak up for others. Building on her background in spoken word and poetry, Chia is vocal about social injustice and strives to create space for vulnerable and marginalised communities. On “Guard Down”, her first foray into the arena of drum and bass, we are introduced to a much more introspective side of Grace, as she interrogates the anxiety of opening up and allowing herself to be truly seen by those around her.
Free Live Sports – “Sweaty Thighs”
Nipaluna/Hobart-based country-tinged punk trio Free Live Sports describe their music as “constantly at risk of coming apart at the seams”, and it is exactly this quality that makes them so entirely addictive. “Sweaty Thighs” is the lead single from their second album, I’ll Fish When I’m Dead. It’s wonky and bratty, and a cheeky push-back against the romanticised, idealised version of Tasmania peddled by Big Tourism. All proceeds from sales of I’ll Fish When I’m Dead will be donated to Palestine Australia Relief and Action (PARA).
“Gold” is the first new music from Naarm/Melbourne based punk icons The Maggie Pills since their triumphant 2023 album Hope Is a Risk. Alluringly restrained, it sizzles with defiance as the vital six-piece urges us to rebel against the limitations of societal homogeneity and fully inhabit our true selves without fear or shame. The band say, “Being different and true to ourselves can be painful and isolating, but we believe that it is the most valuable thing we can give out into the world.” And they are dead right.
