Community radio music directors often have an encyclopedic 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 directors to highlight new Aussie tunes that you might have missed.
In this edition, Stephen Goodhew from FBi Radio in Sydney contributes with a selection of tracks currently making their way to community radio through Amrap’s music distribution service ‘AirIt’. Check out Stephen’s 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.
GL – Hallucinate
For a while there, it felt like funk was a genre stuck in a time warp, doomed to a future ruled by the sounds of its past. Thankfully in recent years there’s been growing Australian scene of acts taking that classic funk sound and pushing and prodding it, making it something fresh.
Enter GL’s single, Hallucinate – an effortlessly funky affair, mixing groove heavy bass lines with synth-pop, creating one of the most immediately danceable songs I’ve heard from any Australian artist this year. It comes off their debut album, Touch, which is out now through Plastic World and Midnight Feature. It’s definitely worth a gander.
Felix Lush – State of Mind
When New Wave is done well, it has a quality to it – that rare place a song sits when it perfectly balances the sad and the happy. It’s a balancing act that Felix Lush is making look all too easy on State of Mind.
Propelled by a robotic disco beat pushed out by a drum machine, it has that feeling of a song that in another reality might soar, but in the here and now, is kept close to earth, weighted by Felix’s own experiences.
Having already played in Bearhug and Claire & the Cops, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that Felix knows his way around a song. If State of Mind is any indicator, this is a project that you’d do well to keep an eye on.
Alta – Plans
Alta are a Melbourne duo doing something all too few pop acts do: moving the genre forward. Their single, Plans, taken from an upcoming EP due to be released through Soothsayer, does exactly that. It takes the familiar tropes of a pop song and puts it through the ringer. What emerges is a woozy, slightly twisted pop hit that’s hugely catchy and an interesting listen to boot.
Moonbase Commander – Greyhound
Moonbase Commander isn’t exactly a stranger to the FBi airwaves. He’s been evolving his sound and perfecting his technique for a while now, but Greyhound marks a serious levelling up.
It takes the tropes of drum ‘n’ bass, a genre that I was foolish enough to think had done it’s dash, and breathes new life into it. The result is a dark and dank club banger that works just as well on the radio waves as it does at 3am on the dancefloor.
Marcus – Toast
Smooth melodies, boom bap beats and spitfire flow; it’s a recipe for gold employed flawlessly on Marcus’ latest single, Toast. It’s one of a recent wave of Australian hip-hop releases that continue to push the local scene in exciting new directions.
Having recently made an appearance on Baro’s hugely catchy, WDUBI, it feels like Marcus is an artist settling into a groove. If he keeps releasing party tracks like this then he’s a name you can expect to be hearing plenty more in future.
The Ocean Party – Back Bar
I think as long as I live, I’ll always have a soft-spot for Australian guitar pop. Something about those breezy guitar lines and laid-back vocals just sound like round tripping down a coastal road in summer. For me, this is why I love Back Bar.
It has that classic Australian feel, without trying to shove it down your throat in an obvious, clichéd kind of way. It’s a sound that Ocean Party have been capturing beautifully for a while now and I can’t wait to hear their new album, Restless, out later in September on Spunk Records.
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