With the end of the year fast approaching, it’s time to look back and reflect on what was an incredible year of Australian music with our own small acknowledgment of the artists and releases that made our 2016.

Throughout the week, we’ll be announcing the winners of our Tone Deaf awards over the following categories:

Today, we’re happy to present our award for Track of the Year:

‘The Roof’ – friendships

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“The most frightening scene in Wolf Creek is one in which the film’s notorious antagonist, Mick Taylor, does not even appear. It involves a screaming girl, covered in blood, who runs out into the middle of an outback highway. Stretching for miles in front of her is nothing but empty, barren road and when the camera finally swings around behind her, both she and the audience are confronted with the grim reality of her situation when we see the same – nothing but empty, barren road.

The scene is so chilling because it takes the picturesque Australian outback of endless postcards and tourism campaigns and turns it into the film’s true villain. It reminds all Australians that you don’t have to voyage into the depths of space for no one to hear you scream, you simply have to drive for 200kms in any direction.

That’s the confronting feeling of unease that Melbourne audio-visual duo friendships managed to capture on ‘The Roof’. The track is a classic Melbourne affair, with its left-of-field, art school electronica aesthetics. But it’s Nic Brown’s spoken-word accompaniment to the song’s brooding electronic crescendo that makes it one of the most vital Australian releases of 2016.

Violent, manic, and frightening, Brown conjures images like red dirt and heads filled with maggots, all spewed out in a quintessentially Australian vernacular. You, love, you’re not quite sure what to make of it, but can’t shake the feeling that it all sounds eerily and depressingly familiar.” – Greg Moskovitch

“‘Kiss me on the lips, God, you gutless – wanker’, spits Nic Brown, his voice as dry and cracked and tired as the land he evokes. But there’s nothing gutless about friendships – an act who pour themselves entirely into everything they do, with more to discover the deeper you dig.

The aesthetic is immediately recognisable as having been birthed in the dark recesses of Melbourne’s electronic havens, sparse tribal percussion awash with foreboding synth – but there’s a dichotomy at work on ‘The Roof’ that elevates it beyond the clubs, and into a far wider social relevance.

Equally dark tales brought from across the Nullarbor – the worms and insects crawling beneath one of WA’s overturned rocks – are what drives ‘The Roof’ home; a deeply-personal account of violence and self-loathing that, for many of us in this country, will hit incredibly close to home. Just as Nic’s narrative thrusts its hand into your guts and twists, Misha’s disturbing visuals tell another harrowing tale of a fall that almost took her life – less immediate and self-evident, but no less frightening.

One of the most vital tracks of the year, ‘The Roof’ not only manages to tie seemingly disparate worlds into a dread-soaked seven minutes, but also serves as a brutal testament to the dirt beneath the fingernails of Australia.” – Brandon John

Shortlist:

  • ‘The Roof’ – friendships
  • ‘Robot Stop’ – King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
  • ‘Don’t Let The Kids Win’ – Julia Jacklin
  • ‘January 26’ – A.B. Original feat. Dan Sultan
  • ‘Count Me Out’ – Luca Brasi feat. Georgia Maq
  • ‘For Good’ – REMI feat. Sampa the Great
  • ‘Be With You’ – RÜFÜS
  • ‘Papercuts’ – Illy feat. Vera Blue
  • ‘Stranger’ – Peking Duk feat. Elliphant
  • ‘Bullshit’ – Dune Rats

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