On 14 August 2026, Kayps dropped BUNUBA BABY, which is easily his best work so far and, if you have read our review of the album, you would know just how much we loved it.

Although the album is deeply personal to Kayps and tells his story through his experiences, family, identity and connection to where he comes from, it also feels much bigger than one person’s story. There are parts of the album that look at the history of his community, what previous generations went through and how those experiences continue to affect the generations that came after them.

That was one of the biggest reasons the album connected with us so much in the first place. Kayps is at the forefront of it, but it never feels like an album that is only about Kayps.

So when he announced the BUNUBA BABY tour with a Melbourne show, I was obviously eager to go and see how an album like this would translate live.

The gig took place at Open Bar in Fitzroy, with Squid the Kid opening the night, followed by Ricky Neil Jr. as co-headliner before Kayps eventually came out to perform.

This was also my first time going to a gig at Open Bar and honestly, the venue felt just right for the kind of show this was supposed to be. There weren’t too many people in the room, but sometimes that can actually make a gig better when everyone who is there genuinely wants to be there.

That was definitely the case on this night.

There was a really positive energy throughout the room, and whether it was Squid, Ricky or Kayps performing, people were actually paying attention, reacting to the songs and giving the artists something back. It didn’t feel like one of those shows where half the crowd is talking at the back waiting for the one artist or song they came to hear.

Everyone seemed invested in what was happening in front of them, and that ended up becoming one of my favourite things about the entire night.

Squid the Kid

First up was Squid the Kid, who seemed slightly nervous at times, which is completely understandable when you’re opening a show and trying to get a room warmed up.

But even with some of those nerves, he performed his songs well and you could hear the quality of the music underneath it because Squid already has some genuine bangers in his catalogue.

I think the performance side is something that will naturally get better the more he plays live. There are certain things you can only really learn by getting on stage again and again, figuring out how to command a room, how to move between songs and eventually reaching the point where everything becomes second nature.

As a songwriter though, he is already creating some incredible songs, and that is probably the harder part to learn.

A special shoutout also has to go to his drummer, who was excellent throughout the set and really helped make everything feel tighter and hit harder live.

Then we got Ricky Neil Jr., and this is where the night became a little ridiculous.

Ricky Neil Jr.

Where do I even start with this guy?

I had listened to Ricky’s music before, and based purely on that I was already expecting him to have this slightly over-the-top, theatrical and dramatic energy on stage. What I wasn’t expecting was just how good he would be at it.

Ricky is one of those performers who has something that is incredibly difficult to teach. There is a sense of mystery and charisma around him where even when he isn’t doing anything particularly huge, you still find yourself watching him because you want to see what he is going to do next.

I’ve been to a lot of gigs over the years and seen a lot of incredible performers, but there aren’t that many people who can completely hold an audience’s attention in the way Ricky did during this show.

This was also my first time seeing him live, so maybe people who have seen him multiple times already know exactly what I’m talking about, but if this is the level he performs at every time, I’m genuinely surprised he isn’t playing much bigger stages already.

After the show, I was talking to someone about how our generation never really got the opportunity to experience performers like Freddie Mercury or Elvis Presley live. Obviously we can watch footage of those performances, but watching something on a screen decades later is completely different from actually being in the room and feeling whatever made those people so captivating in the first place.

And I know this is going to sound like a massive comparison, but while watching Ricky I genuinely had this thought that if Freddie Mercury was Australian and playing in a small club in Fitzroy, maybe there would be something similar about the way it felt.

I’m not saying Ricky sounds like Freddie Mercury or that he is trying to perform like him, because that isn’t really what I mean. It’s more about that complete commitment to performing.

It isn’t only the way Ricky moves around the stage or the expressions on his face. It’s his entire body language, his vocals, knowing which word needs slightly more weight, where his pitch needs to rise, when he needs to pull something back and when he needs to completely let go.

Everything becomes part of the performance.

And when all of those things come together, you stop feeling like you’re simply watching someone sing their songs and start feeling like you’re watching an actual show.

I genuinely think Ricky Neil Jr. is someone you need to experience live to completely understand what I’m talking about, because videos can show you what he does, but they can’t necessarily recreate what it feels like when you’re standing a few metres away from him doing it.

He was easily one of the biggest surprises of the night for me and, without exaggerating it too much, one of the best live performers I’ve seen in a long time.

Then somehow Kayps had to follow that.

Kayps and Why BUNUBA BABY Matters

And then came the man of the moment, who had just released what we believe is one of the most important Australian hip-hop albums of all time.

Before getting into the performance itself, I think it’s worth briefly talking about why BUNUBA BABY matters so much, because that context completely changes what it feels like to hear these songs performed live.

When we reviewed the album, one of the things that stood out immediately was how much Kayps had grown as an artist. He was already a talented rapper before this record, but this album felt like the moment where he really understood what he wanted to do with that talent.

Throughout the project he talks about his Bunuba and Walmatjarri identity, his family, Fitzroy Crossing, racism, colonisation, stolen wages, people his community has lost and his own complicated relationship with culture.

But what makes the album special is the way all of those things connect.

A song like “765” can talk about stolen wages, land and generations of history while somehow still sounding like an anthem that people can scream along to. Then you have something like the “UNCLE JOHNNY” interlude, where Kayps almost completely removes himself and allows an older voice to recount memories of people locking arms in the river, police arriving and people being taken away one by one.

There isn’t a verse afterwards trying to explain what we just heard. The memory is allowed to stand by itself.

Then elsewhere on the album, Kayps turns those ideas back towards himself and starts asking questions about his own relationship with his culture, including the incredibly vulnerable line, “Am I an imposter in my own culture?”

That is what makes the record feel so much bigger than simply an album about one young artist’s life.

Kayps is telling his story, but that story exists because of the people who came before him, the community around him and the history they collectively carry. And despite how heavy some of that history is, the album never reduces his community to trauma either. There is humour, pride, family, confidence and celebration running through it as well.

That was the album we were now getting to hear live.

BUNUBA BABY Live

Kayps ended up performing the album from start to finish, which I think was probably the best way he could have approached this show.

This isn’t really an album where I would want him to pick five or six songs, move them around and fit them between older tracks just because those songs might get a bigger reaction.

The sequencing is such an important part of BUNUBA BABY because there is a story developing across the record, and performing it in order allowed us to experience that journey again in a completely different setting.

Kayps brought good energy throughout the performance and the band behind him was incredibly tight, which gave some of these songs a different kind of life compared with hearing them on the record.

But once again, what really made the performance work was the relationship between what was happening on stage and the people standing in front of it.

The crowd wasn’t huge, but every person in that room seemed to genuinely care about what they were witnessing. People were listening to the quieter moments, reacting to the bigger ones and giving Kayps the kind of energy back that these songs deserved.

And honestly, I would take that over a bigger room where half the people aren’t paying attention any day.

Kayps also performed a song that didn’t make the final version of BUNUBA BABY, which was interesting because although I thought the song itself was good, hearing it alongside everything else actually made me understand why it didn’t make the album.

It wasn’t really about the quality of the song. It just didn’t feel as necessary to the larger story.

When you have an album that is this focused and where almost every song seems to have a reason for existing exactly where it does, sometimes leaving a good song out is actually a better decision than forcing it onto the tracklist.

I would still love to see Kayps release it as a standalone single at some point though, because outside the context of the album, there is definitely something there.

The set eventually closed with “Black Fellah”, which Kayps has used as the closer for a lot of his shows and felt like a fitting way to finish this one too.

By the end of the night, what stayed with me wasn’t necessarily one particular song or moment, but just how much talent had been packed into this relatively small room in Fitzroy.

Squid the Kid is already writing some incredible songs and now needs the time and live experience to become as comfortable on stage as he sounds on record.

Ricky Neil Jr. completely caught me off guard and gave one of the most captivating live performances I’ve seen in a long time. I genuinely think he has the charisma and performance ability to command stages considerably bigger than the one we saw him on here.

And then there is Kayps.

When we reviewed BUNUBA BABY, one of the biggest things I took away from the album was that Kayps’ growth isn’t simply about becoming a better rapper. He was already good at that.

The growth is in understanding what he wants his music to say.

There were not hundreds of people standing inside Open Bar that night, and maybe a few years from now Kayps, Ricky and even Squid will be playing rooms considerably bigger than this one.

But there is something special about seeing artists at this stage, when the rooms are still small enough that the separation between the people making the music and the people supporting it almost disappears.

Because BUNUBA BABY was never really about how big the room could become.

As the album itself reminds us, money comes and goes, but your community is forever. And on this night in Fitzroy, the community showed up.

Every Friday, Sound Under curates the best of Australian alternative music: fresh releases, overlooked gems, rising artists, and songs worth spending real time with.

Whether you’re driving down the coast, walking through the city late at night, or simply tired of playlists chosen by algorithms, these picks are built differently. This isn’t about hype cycles or whatever is trending for 48 hours. It’s about music with replay value, personality, and something real inside it.

No artist is too early. No sound is too left-field, and no scene is too small.

Here’s this week’s Picks:

765 — Kayps

Earlier this week, we wrote about Bunuba Baby, Kayps’ new album and a project that feels much bigger than one artist telling his story.

At the centre of it is Kayps — his perspective, his experiences and his relationship with the community around him — but throughout the album, those individual stories constantly open into something wider. Family, history, Country, community and the things carried from one generation into the next all become part of the record.

“765” is one of the tracks that captures that world particularly well.

There is confidence here, but what makes Kayps interesting is that the confidence rarely feels separated from where he comes from. His identity isn’t something sitting around the edges of the music; it is built directly into it.

And that’s ultimately what makes Bunuba Baby worth spending time with. It isn’t just an album built around Kayps. It feels like something created by and for a community, with everyone involved bringing something to the table.

We went much deeper into the album in our full review earlier this week, so if “765” catches you, go spend some time with *Bunuba Baby*.

Foreverland — Vlads

Vlads were one of the first bands we wrote about on Sound Under, and they keep proving why we liked them in the first place.

“Foreverland” shows another side of the band.

There is something almost utopian about the idea behind it: a place for people who don’t necessarily fit neatly into the mould society has created for them, but find their own playground anyway.

“Welcome one and welcome all / This land’s ours forevermore.”

That feels like the heart of the song.

Foreverland isn’t necessarily somewhere you can point to on a map. It’s the place you create with the people around you. Somewhere you can live freely, hold onto your memories and, at least for a little while, escape everything outside of it.

Vlads wrap that idea inside a massive chorus built to be sung together, which feels pretty appropriate for a song fundamentally about belonging.

Don’t Mean It — The Colliflowers

At this point, there are a few things we’ve come to expect from The Colliflowers: great rhythm, strong melodies, incredibly tight grooves and songs that know exactly how to get stuck in your head.

“Don’t Mean It” ticks pretty much every one of those boxes.

The riff grabs you immediately, the rhythm keeps everything moving and the whole track has that effortless bounce The Colliflowers are becoming very good at creating.

But underneath all of that catchiness is someone looking straight through another person’s bullshit.

“Cut to the core, you can see it / Choose to ignore and believe it / I can see right through / You don’t mean it.”

It’s simple, direct and exactly the kind of line that sticks.

The verses make the situation even messier — vodka tonic in a teacup, a trashed house, broken glass on the floor, forgotten keys — while the narrator seems increasingly aware that whatever this person says doesn’t really mean much anymore.

And somehow The Colliflowers turn all of that into something ridiculously fun to listen to.

Considering the run they’re on right now, you start wondering when they’re actually going to miss.

So far, it doesn’t look like anytime soon.

Parachute — Joe Mungovan

“Parachute”, the seventh track from Joe Mungovan’s project Preparing for Lift Off, sounds ridiculously upbeat for a song about feeling like everything around you is falling apart.

And that’s exactly why it works.

Joe plays with that bait-and-switch throughout much of the project. The music pulls you in one direction while the writing quietly takes you somewhere completely different.

Here, you’ve got an energetic, catchy track wrapped around the feeling of going through the same day over and over again, being told how you’re supposed to live, looking for something and continually coming up empty.

Then comes the central image:

“Feels like I’m going down without a parachute.”

It’s funny because the entire song feels like it’s moving upwards while the person inside it is doing the exact opposite.

That contradiction fits ‘Preparing for Lift Off’ perfectly. The project spends a lot of time wrestling with where you belong, what you’re supposed to be doing and how you’re meant to find yourself when everyone else seems determined to tell you the answer.

Even the plane imagery becomes progressively more chaotic until the plane is literally on fire and Joe has no option left but to jump.

If you haven’t heard Preparing for Lift Off yet, start here. Then go explore the whole project.

Scout’s Honour — Zafty

I’ve been a huge fan of Zafty since hearing his EP ‘OMO BURUKU’, which I still think is his best work to date, so seeing another EP on the way immediately had my attention.

I still need some proper time with the new project before deciding exactly where it sits within his catalogue, but “Scout’s Honour” is a banger.

The hook is immediate, the concept is clever and Zafty once again shows how naturally he can make songs that feel big without completely sanding away his personality.

The whole thing is built around the childhood promise of Scout’s honour — three fingers in the air, promising someone you’ll be there — except Zafty turns that into a love song.

And he commits to the idea.

‘OMO BURUKU’ showed how distinctive he could be, but songs like “Scout’s Honour” make you wonder just how far he can push into bigger, more accessible territory without losing what made his music interesting in the first place.

This new EP looks like another step in that direction.

Where Zafty goes from here is going to be very interesting to watch.

Every Friday, Sound Under spotlights the best alternative music beneath the surface.

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There is a moment on BUNUBA BABY where Kayps remembers seeing photographs of his Elders hanging when he was a child. He didn’t fully understand what he was looking at, so the question that entered his head was an innocent one: “Why is Uncle levitatin’?”

It is only one line on an album filled with difficult ones, but it says a lot about how far Kurrungaya Bieundurry has come as a songwriter.

Kayps has been making music since he was around 13, and for anyone who has followed his work, his ability has never really been in question. He can move between melodic hooks and rapid-fire flows with ridiculous ease, jump between genres without losing himself and, when he wants to, simply outrap the people around him. At 20, he already has the kind of technical confidence that usually comes much later.

What has changed on this album is what he is doing with it.

Released on 14 August, BUNUBA BABY feels like the first time everything around Kayps has been brought into the same place. His childhood, his Bunuba and Walmatjarri identity, Fitzroy Crossing, family, racism, colonisation, stolen wages, people he has lost, his years away from home and his own uncertainty about what that distance has done to him all become part of the record.

It would have been easy for an album carrying this much history to become overwhelmingly heavy, but Kayps understands that the place he is writing about cannot be represented through trauma alone. There is too much love there for that.

The first voice we hear isn’t even his.

Natalie Davey opens “Come Home” through Wangki Radio, welcoming listeners from across the Fitzroy Valley before introducing BUNUBA BABY. It gives the album an immediate sense of place, almost as though what we’re about to hear is being broadcast across the community it belongs to.

Kayps follows by giving us the kind of details that rarely appear when people talk about regional communities from the outside. Four-wheel drives, the heat, cigarette smoke outside a clinic, a drum kit in the meeting building, cousins fighting on the grass, the IGA, trying to heat up a feed when there’s no microwave around. There is nothing particularly grand about these images, which is precisely why they work.

The darker realities exist right beside them too. A booze ban, rehab and a cousin who died at 25 after Kayps had told him he’d see him soon.

“Sugar coating where I’m from could never make me hide away,” he says towards the end of the verse.

That refusal to simplify home becomes one of the most important ideas running through the album.

“CROCODILES” carries the same feeling forward, but with more warmth. Kayps writes about returning northwest, fishing after the rain, the riverbank, red dirt, dry season and crocodiles sitting in the water. Yet within the same song, he is writing about songlines being washed away by the West, stolen wages and generations of people fighting to hold onto culture.

Neither side cancels out the other.

The Fitzroy Valley Kayps gives us is beautiful because it is home, and painful because of what has happened there. The anger that naturally comes from that becomes much harder to ignore on “SHIPS”.

Kayps goes back to being the only Black kid in his class, remembering the prejudice that surrounded him and eventually being told that he was “too black”. His response isn’t restrained, nor should it be. The track carries an aggression that feels built from years of being expected to absorb those experiences quietly.

Flewnt and JJ Vacant extend that feeling beyond Kayps himself. Flewnt’s verse in particular is brilliant, moving from cultural pride towards stolen wages and the demand for greater space, funding and recognition. By the time the song ends, it no longer feels like one person’s frustration. The voices around Kayps are becoming an increasingly important part of the album.

That sense of community is something the album returns to constantly. Kayps may be at the centre of the record, but he rarely writes as though his story exists by itself.

On “765”, one of the strongest performances on the album, he moves between his own experience and something much older almost without warning. The track is technically impressive — Kayps’ delivery alone could give plenty of rappers a run for their money — but what makes it work is that none of that technical ability gets in the way of what he’s actually saying.

He talks about his culture being criminalised, wanting land returned and still waiting on his grandfather’s stolen wages before reaching one of the most haunting images on the entire album:

“As a youngin, I saw photos of my Elders hangin’

Lil’ me thinkin’, ‘Why is Uncle levitatin’?’”

There is something devastating about seeing that through the eyes of a child who doesn’t yet understand what he’s looking at. Kayps is smart enough not to explain the moment any further. He leaves the image there and keeps moving.

But for everything “765” carries, this doesn’t sound like a song weighed down by its subject matter. It’s huge. The hook sticks almost immediately, Kayps attacks the beat and there is a confrontational energy to the whole thing that makes me wonder what this song could become once people have had some time with it.

There is something about “765” that reminds me of what happened with Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us”. Not necessarily in how the two songs sound, but in their ability to carry something much heavier inside music that people can gather around. Kendrick made a diss track that thousands of people ended up shouting together, and listening to “765”, you can imagine Kayps getting his own version of that moment.

“765 section steppin’, tell me where you from.”

Give that line a crowd and you can already hear what happens next.

And if it does become that kind of song for him, there is something pretty powerful about what people will actually be shouting along to. A track about being a Black boy from the northwest, about culture being criminalised, stolen wages, land, family and the things he saw growing up has been packed inside one of the most immediate songs on the album.

Kayps hasn’t watered any of it down to make an anthem. The things he wants to say are the anthem.

That makes the “UNCLE JOHNNY” interlude that follows feel particularly important.

An older voice recalls trucks approaching while people sat in the middle of the river. They were told to move. Some did, while others locked arms and stayed before being taken away one by one.

“It was like a war to me,” he remembers. “I was really scared.”

There is no verse from Kayps afterwards trying to contextualise what we’ve heard. The memory is allowed to exist on its own, and after hearing “765” immediately before it, the relationship between the two generations becomes difficult to miss. One carries the memory of what happened; the other is figuring out what to do with everything that memory has left behind.

There is a quote commonly attributed to Jimi Hendrix that I’ve carried around in my wallet for years: “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”

I found myself thinking about it a lot while listening to the album, because so much of the history sitting underneath this album eventually leads you back to power. Who had it, who didn’t, what people were willing to do to keep it, and what happens when the consequences of those decisions are inherited by generations who had nothing to do with making them.

History isn’t sitting somewhere safely in the past on this record. Kayps is talking about his grandfather’s wages. He’s talking about photographs he saw as a child. He’s talking about things his family and community are dealing with now. The distance between what Uncle Johnny remembers and what this 20-year-old is rapping about isn’t nearly as large as it should be.

And then Kayps gives us the title track “BUNUBA BABY”.

Suddenly he’s full of bravado, calling himself the hottest brother in Boorloo City, putting on for the West and talking about Bunuba blood with complete confidence. In another context it might simply sound like the familiar self-belief of a young rapper who knows he’s good. Here, coming directly after the voice of an older generation, it feels closer to reclamation.

There is history behind that confidence, and maybe that’s why pride feels so important on this album. Kayps isn’t proud because he doesn’t know what happened. He’s proud while knowing exactly what happened, what survived and what his community continues to carry.

The same applies to the album’s politics. Kayps never treats them like a separate category of songwriting that requires the music to suddenly become serious around them.

“STICK TO THE CODE” is probably the clearest example.

It has the best and catchiest beat on the record, and everyone involved understands exactly what to do with it. Kayps, Yung Maynie, Sachém, Denzel Kennedy and Big Deej move through the track with so much confidence that it is easy to imagine the song becoming a live favourite.

Yet underneath that energy are many of the same concerns running through the rest of the album: tokenism, culture, land, money, family and the responsibility of standing with your people.

The message doesn’t interrupt the song because, for Kayps, there doesn’t seem to be any reason those things should exist separately. A song can carry history and still make a crowd move.

Even the short “RUN BOY RUN” gives us another piece of the world Kayps has been building. He writes about a 2,524-kilometre drive, flooded roads, water seeping through the door, six-foot ant hills in the distance, salt mounds, camping and the river continuing to rise. So much of the album is about what home means politically, culturally and personally, but here Kayps almost just lets us travel through it with him.

“SONNY WALTERS” brings the anger straight back. Kayps is looking at the systems surrounding his community again, calling out the way Indigenous culture can be celebrated when it is convenient while the politics rarely reflect that same admiration.

He moves through homelessness, incarceration and the history people would rather ignore, and by this point in the album you realise how easily Kayps moves between the past and the present because, in his writing, the two are constantly affecting each other.

That balance is one of the album’s biggest strengths, particularly because the further Kayps takes us into his world, the less straightforward his own place within it becomes.

“GOODY” is where that tension finally comes to the surface.

“Am I an imposter in my own culture?”

After hearing Kayps spend much of the album defending his identity so forcefully, the question catches you off guard.

He begins thinking about the distance that has grown between himself and his father’s teachings, wondering whether he understands himself well enough to be the kind of role model he wants to become. He talks about friends seeing him cry more often, accepting that he needs to let his feelings out and recognising that healing might require a kind of vulnerability we haven’t heard much from him elsewhere.

Then he looks back at his teenage years.

“Teen years as a black kid in a white place

Any photo taken had me changing into white face.”

What follows is perhaps the hardest question Kayps asks anywhere on the record: whether he had placed himself in environments where conforming became normal enough that he began washing out his own race.

These are some of the deepest and darkest lines on the album. Anyone who has ever felt themselves changing just to belong somewhere will know how shit it feels to eventually look back and wonder how much of yourself you left behind in the process. For Kayps, that question runs even deeper because he’s talking about his culture, his father’s teachings and his identity as a Black man.

And he doesn’t really answer it. Maybe he can’t yet.

For an album filled with confrontations, “GOODY” contains the most difficult one because Kayps is no longer confronting anyone else. He is looking at himself.

The second verse makes that reflection even more significant by taking us back to where his relationship with music started. Kayps talks about making his first tape at 13, when music was one of the only places he had to put the anger he was carrying. He remembers Ducky supporting him, Goonie seeing potential he hadn’t yet recognised in himself and his mum accompanying him to venues because he was still a kid.

Seven years isn’t a particularly long time, but there is an enormous distance between the artist described in that verse and the one capable of writing it.

The anger hasn’t disappeared, BUNUBA BABY wouldn’t be the same record if it had. What has changed is Kayps’ ability to understand what sits around it.

He can now trace personal experiences back through family and history, recognise that pride and uncertainty aren’t opposites and write about his community without reducing it to what has happened to it. Just as importantly, he can write about himself without pretending his own story exists outside the people who raised him.

That becomes especially clear on the closing track, “BROKEN GLASS”.

Kayps and BADASSMUTHA write openly about generational trauma and systems that continue to make decisions affecting their communities, but towards the end of the track, Kayps’ attention shifts.

“Money comes and goes, but your community’s forever

If you’re hurting, then at least we hurt together.”

After everything that precedes it, the sentiment doesn’t feel sentimental. If anything, it reveals what has been underneath the album from the beginning.

For all the justified anger running through the album, anger isn’t really what holds the record together, Community does.

Kayps keeps returning to cousins, family, his father, his grandfather, his Elders, the people who backed him when he was 13, the people he has lost and the younger generation now looking towards him. Even his most personal questions are connected to what those relationships mean.

It is why the album’s framing through Wangki Radio works so well.

At the beginning, Natalie Davey announces BUNUBA BABY across the Fitzroy Valley. What follows feels like Kayps filling that broadcast with everything he wants carried through it: memories of home, uncomfortable history, anger, humour, grief, pride, uncertainty and the voices of people around him.

Then Natalie returns at the end.

“If you’re still with me, that was Bunuba Baby.”

She reminds everyone that it’s hot outside and tells them to stay cool.

After everything we’ve heard, there is something almost perfect about how ordinary that ending is.

Because at the forefront of all of this is Kayps. It’s his story, his perspective of the world and the community around him, but that doesn’t take away from what the album really becomes by the time it’s over.

This is an album about community.

It’s about history and the things people went through, but also what those experiences did to the people around them and the generations that came afterwards. It’s about what gets passed down, what gets taken away, what survives and what people do with all of that when it eventually becomes theirs to carry.

Which is why it feels fitting that BUNUBA BABY itself doesn’t exist because of Kayps alone.

There are featured artists all over this record bringing their own stories and perspectives into his world. There are producers shaping how those stories sound, the people behind the mixing and mastering, the artwork, Natalie Davey and Uncle Johnny’s voices, and everyone else who helped turn the idea into the album we’re hearing now. You can feel that people understood what Kayps was trying to make here and brought their A-game because of it.

Take those people away and BUNUBA BABY wouldn’t be the same album.

In that sense, maybe the way this record was made tells us as much about it as the lyrics do. Kayps spends 11 tracks reminding us that nobody’s story really exists by itself, and the album carrying those stories was built by a group of people around him.

But standing at the front of that community is still this 20-year-old artist who started making music at 13 because he needed somewhere to put everything he was feeling. Seven years later, he’s not just putting those feelings onto a page anymore. He’s understanding where they came from, connecting them to the people who came before him and finding a way to make other people listen.

And it really does feel like Kayps is ready to claim his place. Not only within Australian hip-hop, either.

There is something much bigger in what he’s building here. The ability has always been obvious, but this album gives that ability purpose. Kayps knows where he comes from, he’s starting to understand exactly what he wants to say, and now he’s becoming good enough as a songwriter to make people far outside his own world stop and listen.

If there was only one Australian hip-hop artist we could put our weight behind right now, Kayps would be it.

BUNUBA BABY shows exactly why.

At 20 years old, he’s made the best record of his career so far, but I don’t think this conversation needs to stop at Kayps either. For us, BUNUBA BABY is already in the conversation for one of the best Australian albums of 2026.

Every Friday, Sound Under curates the best of Australian alternative music: fresh releases, overlooked gems, rising artists, and songs worth spending real time with.

Whether you’re driving down the coast, walking through the city late at night, or simply tired of playlists chosen by algorithms, these picks are built differently. This isn’t about hype cycles or whatever is trending for 48 hours. It’s about music with replay value, personality, and something real inside it.

No artist is too early. No sound is too left-field, and no scene is too small.

Here’s this week’s Picks:

I Don’t Mind — Five Buck Kid

“I Don’t Mind” starts with pure fuck-you energy and never really lets up.

Melbourne independent band Five Buck Kid have built the track around the emotional messiness of a situationship, but instead of drowning in it, they turn that frustration into something loud, catchy and ridiculously fun.

The rhythm grabs you almost immediately, the drums are tight, and the hook is the kind that gets stuck in your head after one listen. But our favourite moment comes towards the end, when the guitar solo kicks in. It feels like all the frustration running through the song finally gets somewhere to go, capturing the emotion of the track without needing to spell it out.

Five Buck Kid are heading out on tour in October around the release of the track, and if you haven’t heard them yet, this is a very good place to start before digging into the rest of their catalogue.

If you like the storytelling and heart of Springsteen mixed with the swagger and guitar energy of Arctic Monkeys, there is a very good chance you’ll fuck with “I Don’t Mind.”

When The Shit Went Down — Ella Hooper

Ella Hooper first came into the public eye as the frontwoman of Killing Heidi, and at this stage of her career, she really doesn’t need to prove how good of a songwriter she is.

But “When The Shit Went Down,” the first single from her upcoming album *Overnight Success*, feels like an artist who still has plenty left to say.

There is a maturity to the song that immediately stands out. It deals with hitting rock bottom and everything that comes with those moments when life stops going the way you thought it would. It’s personal, but never so specific that you can’t find some part of yourself inside it.

That universality is probably what we connected with most. Regardless of age or background, most of us know what it feels like to have life knock us down, question where we’re going, and somehow have to figure out what comes next.

Hooper doesn’t romanticise that feeling. She writes from the perspective of someone who has lived enough life to understand that the difficult chapters are often the ones that change us the most.

If “When The Shit Went Down” is setting the emotional tone for *Overnight Success*, we’re very interested to see where the rest of the album takes us when it arrives in October.

Adeline — Outfront

After a few months away, Outfront return with their fourth single, “Adeline,” and honestly, what a way to come back.

This is everything we want from a good indie pop-rock song. The composition is bright and energetic, the hook sticks almost immediately, and there is a feel-good quality running through the track that makes standing still pretty difficult.

But the guitars are where “Adeline” really comes alive.

If we had to pick our favourite guitar solo from this week’s releases, this might be it. Scott Morrison deserves a special mention because his playing throughout the entire song is excellent, but when that solo arrives, it takes the track somewhere else entirely.

What we like about Outfront is that they don’t seem interested in overcomplicating things. “Adeline” is built around melody, movement and musicianship. Sometimes that’s all you need.

Clean — Hein Cooper

Hein Cooper is one of those artists you put on when you actually want to sit with your thoughts.

His music has always carried a sense of self-discovery, almost like you’re listening to someone figure things out in real time. If you haven’t heard him before, his 2025 album *My Own* is a very good place to start.

What makes Cooper special is how easily he can take you into something deeply personal while somehow making it feel like your own story.

“Clean” captures that beautifully.

There is something almost hypnotic about the composition. The song slowly pulls you into a different headspace, creating the kind of atmosphere where everything outside of it seems to disappear for a few minutes.

And by the time the song finishes, you might find yourself thinking about something you weren’t thinking about when it started.

Maybe that’s what “Clean” does best. It creates space. Space to think, reflect and perhaps understand something about yourself that you hadn’t quite figured out yet.

Disguise — Even Hannah

Three songs into this new chapter, it feels like Even Hannah are absolutely heading in the right direction.

Each release is revealing a little more of what this band are capable of, and “Disguise” takes their sound another step forward. There is something bigger about this one. The composition is groovy, the hooks land immediately, and the whole track carries the confidence of a band whose music feels increasingly built for much larger stages.

Honestly, we weren’t expecting them to push the sound this far this quickly, and that might be what makes “Disguise” such a welcome surprise.

When we previously wrote about “Chapter One,” we said there was something refreshing about hearing a band sound genuinely excited about what comes next. That song felt like a turning point, or at least the beginning of one.

“Disguise” makes that feeling even stronger.

Even Hannah have been steadily building momentum through energetic performances, big guitar hooks and songwriting that feels built for crowded rooms. While plenty of bands spend years trying to figure out exactly what they want to sound like, Even Hannah increasingly sound like a group becoming more confident with every release.

What stood out about “Chapter One” was the ambition behind it. “Disguise” feels like some of that ambition starting to become reality.

Every Friday, Sound Under spotlights the best alternative music beneath the surface.

Got a track we should hear?
Tag @soundunderau on Instagram or send us a DM.

Every Friday, Sound Under curates the best of Australian alternative music: fresh releases, overlooked gems, rising artists, and songs worth spending real time with.

Whether you’re driving down the coast, walking through the city late at night, or simply tired of playlists chosen by algorithms, these picks are built differently. This isn’t about hype cycles or whatever is trending for 48 hours. It’s about music with replay value, personality, and something real inside it.

No artist is too early. No sound is too left-field, and no scene is too small.

Here’s this week’s Picks:

Tear — Nancy and the Jam Fancys

Nancy and the Jam Fancys have quietly become one of the most distinctive bands coming out of Australia’s alternative scene. Every release feels unpredictable, and “Tear” continues that trend.

At its core, the song captures a feeling most of us know all too well: loving the place you call home while also wanting to escape it. It’s that strange push and pull between comfort and frustration, where you’re constantly questioning whether to stay or leave.

A huge part of why the song works is Lewis Griffin’s vocal performance. He has one of those voices that never feels forced. Every line carries emotion naturally, whether he’s delivering something vulnerable or completely letting loose. Few vocalists can make a song feel this personal without overdoing it.

Musically, “Tear” moves through those same emotional shifts. It’s driven by raw punk energy, but underneath the noise is a sense of longing that lingers long after the song finishes. It’s chaotic, heartfelt and another reminder of why Nancy and the Jam Fancys continue to be one of the most exciting bands to watch.

Lessons (feat. DOBBY) — DOBBY

DOBBY’s latest album Marshmallow feels less like a collection of songs and more like a reflection on the person he’s become. It’s a deeply personal record that explores identity, growth and everything that comes with it.

While there are plenty of standout moments across the album, “Lessons” feels like its emotional centrepiece.

The storytelling is some of the strongest we’ve heard this year. DOBBY moves effortlessly between his past and present, reflecting on the experiences that shaped him without ever sounding self-indulgent. Every verse feels intentional, adding another piece to the bigger picture.

What makes the track even stronger is how naturally it blends personal reflection with wider social commentary. It’s honest, thoughtful and shows an artist completely comfortable examining both his own journey and the world around him.

If you only listen to one song from Marshmallow, make it “Lessons.” But honestly, this is an album that deserves to be heard from start to finish.

Take Me to the Meeting — Mac The Knife

Sydney outfit Mac The Knife are quickly becoming one of the most exciting names in Australia’s punk scene. Their music feels loud, restless and built for packed rooms where nobody stands still.

There’s a rawness to their sound that feels authentic rather than manufactured, balancing chaos with just enough melody to keep you coming back.

What separates Mac The Knife from so many bands in this lane is that they take the foundations of punk and make them feel current, energetic and completely their own.

Gummy Bear — Le Shiv

Le Shiv have become one of those bands that consistently surprise us. Every release seems to explore a slightly different direction while still sounding unmistakably like Le Shiv. That willingness to evolve is what makes following them so rewarding.

“Gummy Bear” continues that run. Built around infectious melodies, layered harmonies and the band’s signature indie-rock energy, it’s another reminder that great songwriting doesn’t need to be overcomplicated.

There’s an effortless quality to the way Le Shiv write hooks. The songs feel loose and fun on the surface, but repeated listens always reveal little moments that keep pulling you back in.

If you’ve been following the band over the last year, “Gummy Bear” feels like another confident step forward. If you’re only discovering them now, it’s a very good place to start.

The Whole Lot — Rhiz & The Sugarplums

Not every great Australian release has to come from the indie or punk world, and Rhiz & The Sugarplums are proof of that.

The Melbourne five-piece bring together country, rockabilly and vintage rock ‘n’ roll influences, but they never sound like they’re simply recreating the past. Instead, they take those classic sounds and inject them with fresh energy, making them feel timeless.

“The Whole Lot” is full of personality. From the band’s tight musicianship to Rhiz’s commanding vocal performance, everything feels playful, confident and impossible not to move along to.

What makes Rhiz & The Sugarplums special is that they fully embrace who they are. In a music landscape where so many artists are chasing trends, they’re carving out a lane that feels entirely their own, and that’s exactly why they deserve your attention.

Every Friday, Sound Under spotlights the best alternative music beneath the surface.

Got a track we should hear?
Tag @soundunderau on Instagram or send us a DM.

There are some gigs you walk away from talking about the songs, others where you can’t stop thinking about a particular performance, and then there are nights that stay with you because they remind you why you fell in love with live music in the first place. The final Marthouse Records show at Brunswick Ballroom was one of those nights.

On paper, it was a farewell party. After ten years, Marthouse Records was wrapping up with one final celebration featuring artists who had been part of the label’s story. But by the time it was over, it felt like it had become something much bigger than simply saying goodbye to a record label.

If you’ve followed Dougal Shaw for any amount of time, you’ll know he has never been interested in taking the easy path.

Whether it’s speaking openly about the realities of streaming, standing up for causes he believes in, or making music that refuses to fit neatly into expectations, he’s built a reputation for saying exactly what he thinks. You don’t have to agree with every opinion he holds to recognise that consistency because, in an industry where artists are constantly encouraged to chase trends or soften their edges, Dougal has always seemed far more interested in staying true to himself.

Looking back over Marthouse’s ten-year run, that’s probably what stands out the most. It never felt like the label was trying to become something it wasn’t. There wasn’t a moment where it suddenly pivoted towards whatever sound happened to be popular or started making decisions purely because they made commercial sense.

Every release felt like it belonged there because somebody genuinely believed in it.

To me, that’s one of the greatest gifts an artist can give their audience. Not perfection or popularity, but honesty.

Music feels different when it’s made without constantly looking over its shoulder, wondering how it’ll perform on playlists or social media. Marthouse always gave me that feeling, and I think that’s why so many people connected with it.

I arrived at Brunswick Ballroom fairly early, before most of the crowd had filtered in, and one of the first things I saw was Dougal behind the merch table selling records himself. It was such a simple moment, but it summed up the night perfectly.

There wasn’t any separation between artist, label owner and audience. He was chatting with people, recommending records, signing records, catching up with familiar faces and doing what he’d probably been doing for the past decade: building a community around music he genuinely believed in.

The venue turned out to be the perfect place for a night like this. Brunswick Ballroom has a warmth to it that you don’t always find in larger venues. It feels intimate without feeling small, and as the room slowly filled throughout the evening, it became less like a concert and more like a community gathering.

Those are the kinds of spaces that remind you why live music matters. You’re not watching something from a distance. You’re part of it.

The support acts helped build that atmosphere from the very beginning. Tali and the Arms immediately caught my attention with one of the stronger opening sets I’ve seen since moving to Melbourne. Their guitarist, in particular, had a knack for lifting songs with little moments that never felt overplayed but always landed.

The It Thing followed with a set full of groove and energy. There were a few moments where I felt the heavy use of reverb made the vocals harder to follow than they needed to be, but the band’s chemistry was undeniable, and it’s easy to see why they’ve developed such a loyal following.

By the time Dr Sure’s Unusual Practice walked on stage, Brunswick Ballroom was packed, and what followed was exactly the kind of beautifully unpredictable performance that has made the band so beloved over the years.

Dougal has always had this wonderfully chaotic stage presence that somehow feels completely in control at the same time. One minute he’s on stage leading the band, the next he’s in the crowd singing alongside everyone else, before inviting people back onto the stage with him. It never felt like there was a line between performer and audience. Everyone in the room became part of the show.

One of the night’s most memorable moments came when Dougal invited his father onto the stage. The final Marthouse release is a mixtape built around recordings his father made decades ago with his own band in Brisbane, and seeing those two generations connected in that way felt like the perfect ending. Rather than closing the label with a grand statement, Marthouse ended by celebrating music that had simply meant something to the people who made it.

The night wasn’t over just yet, though. Vasco Era closed the evening, and their appearance carried its own quiet significance. Dougal has spoken before about them being one of the first bands he ever saw live in a proper venue, so having them play the final Marthouse show felt like one of those full-circle moments that only live music seems capable of creating.

Walking home afterwards, I realised I hadn’t really spent much time thinking about the fact that a record label had ended. What stayed with me instead was the feeling in the room.

The generosity between the bands, the audience and everyone involved reminded me that independent music has always been about far more than releases or streaming numbers. It’s about communities that form around shared ideas, artists who continue making work because they believe in it, and people who keep turning up simply because they care.

Maybe that’s why this farewell felt so significant. It wasn’t trying to convince anyone that Marthouse had changed Australian music forever, nor did it need to.

It simply celebrated ten years of doing things honestly, backing artists without compromise and creating a space where people could make the kind of music they genuinely wanted to make.

In a music industry that increasingly asks artists to optimise everything they do, that kind of honesty feels more valuable than ever. Marthouse Records may have reached the end of its journey, but if this farewell proved anything, it’s that the ideas it stood for are still very much alive. And perhaps that’s the best legacy any independent label could hope to leave behind.

Every Friday, Sound Under curates the best of Australian alternative music: fresh releases, overlooked gems, rising artists, and songs worth spending real time with.

Whether you’re driving down the coast, walking through the city late at night, or simply tired of playlists chosen by algorithms, these picks are built differently. This isn’t about hype cycles or whatever is trending for 48 hours. It’s about music with replay value, personality, and something real inside it.

No artist is too early. No sound is too left-field, and no scene is too small.

Here’s this week’s Picks:

Arizona — The Colliflowers

The Colliflowers are quietly becoming one of our favourite bands in Australia. Every release feels effortless, but never forgettable. They have a knack for writing songs that sound simple on the surface yet somehow stay with you long after they’ve finished.

“Arizona” is another reminder of that.

The song is built around bright guitars, infectious melodies and a chorus that feels made for long drives with the windows down, but underneath that easy-going energy sits something far more reflective. There’s a lingering feeling of being stuck, caught in routines that are both comforting and destructive.

What we love most about The Colliflowers is that they never overcomplicate their songwriting. They trust good melodies, honest lyrics and great chemistry to do the heavy lifting, and it works every time.

If you’re new to the band, start here, then go back and listen to “Reruns” and their EP Mirage Hotel. We have a feeling this won’t be the last time they appear in our Weekly Picks.

Heaven’s Open — Selve

Gold Coast outfit Selve recently released Breaking Outta Heaven, a companion EP to their album Breaking Into Heaven, recorded at the legendary Abbey Road Studios.

While the whole project is worth your time, “Heaven’s Open” immediately stood out as the heart of the release.

The song opens gently before gradually expanding into something huge. Psychedelic textures, soaring melodies and an anthemic chorus come together to create a track that feels both intimate and cinematic at the same time.

The repeated refrain:

“Heaven’s open and true love is alive.”

becomes more powerful with every listen. Rather than feeling overly sentimental, it lands with genuine optimism, giving the song a warmth that’s difficult to fake.

As an opening track, it couldn’t set the tone any better. It welcomes you into the world of the EP while leaving you wanting to hear where it goes next.

Raid — Sex Mask

There aren’t many bands making post-punk as unpredictable as Sex Mask right now.

The track “Raid” is restless from start to finish. Driving rhythms, jagged guitars and an underlying sense of tension keep everything feeling slightly unhinged without ever falling apart. It’s noisy, hypnotic and constantly feels like it’s about to spill over the edge.

What impresses us most is how naturally the chaos comes together. Every element serves the atmosphere the band are creating.

With a new EP on the way and an enormous UK and European tour ahead, Sex Mask feel like a band entering a new chapter. If “Raid” is any indication, it’s going to be a very exciting one.

Walkie Talkie — Baby Smith

Sometimes the best bands come together completely by chance.

Baby Smith was born after two Australians, Ray Sonder and Saxon Gable, found themselves living in Berlin at the same time. Thankfully they did, because the project they’ve created together feels refreshingly honest from the very first listen.

“Walkie Talkie,” taken from their debut album Lately, Love Is Dead, explores insecurity inside a relationship. It’s about questioning everything, overthinking every interaction and desperately wanting reassurance from someone you care about.

The repeated line:

“You still love me right?”

becomes almost hypnotic as the song unfolds. Every repetition feels a little more desperate than the last, capturing the kind of anxiety that can quietly consume a relationship.

Musically, the band balance that emotional weight with layered harmonies, memorable hooks and polished indie rock production that never loses its warmth.

We only discovered Baby Smith recently, but we’re very glad we did. If you enjoy melody-driven alternative rock with genuine emotional depth, they’re absolutely worth adding to your rotation.

Every Friday, Sound Under spotlights the best alternative music beneath the surface.

Got a track we should hear?
Tag @soundunderau on Instagram or send us a DM.

Australian rock music is often represented by a handful of familiar names.

AC/DC. INXS. Midnight Oil. Powderfinger. Tame Impala.

And while those artists absolutely deserve their place in the conversation, they only tell part of the story.

The most interesting parts of Australian music have often existed slightly beneath the surface. In sweaty pub venues, underground scenes, community halls, independent labels, and bands that never quite became household names despite leaving fingerprints all over the artists that followed.

Some of these songs became cult classics. Others quietly shaped entire scenes. A few still feel just as vital today as the day they were released.

More importantly, every song on this list captures something that makes Australian music unique. A sense of place, a willingness to take risks, and an ability to sound deeply tied to a particular corner of the world while still speaking to people far beyond it.

These are not necessarily the biggest Australian rock songs ever recorded. They’re the songs that help explain why Australian music continues to feel different.

1. The Saints – “(I’m) Stranded” (1976)

If you spend enough time digging through Australian music history, you eventually end up at “(I’m) Stranded.”

Long before punk exploded into a global movement, Brisbane band The Saints were already making music that felt dangerous, urgent, and slightly out of control. The kind of song that sounds like it’s kicking the door open rather than politely asking to be let in.

What makes “(I’m) Stranded” so remarkable is that it still carries that energy today. Nearly fifty years later, it doesn’t feel like a historical artefact. It still sounds fresh, restless, and completely alive.

2. Radio Birdman – “Aloha Steve and Danno” (1977)

Radio Birdman are one of those bands whose influence becomes impossible to ignore once you start following the threads of Australian rock history.

“Aloha Steve and Danno” captures everything that made them special. Sharp guitars, relentless momentum, and a complete refusal to follow convention.

The band never achieved mainstream success on the scale of some of their contemporaries, but their influence can still be heard across Australian punk, garage rock, and alternative music today.

3. The Triffids – “Wide Open Road” (1986)

There are certain songs that seem impossible to separate from the place they came from, and “Wide Open Road” feels like one of them.

Written by David McComb, the track captures a feeling that will probably be familiar to anyone who has spent time travelling through Australia. The distances feel endless, the horizon never seems to stop moving, and somehow the landscape manages to feel both beautiful and lonely at the same time.

The first time you hear it, it feels less like a song and more like a journey unfolding in slow motion.

4. Yothu Yindi – “Treaty” (1991)

More than three decades after its release, “Treaty” still sounds unlike almost anything else in Australian music.

Released in 1991, the song emerged from frustration. Despite promises from the Australian government regarding a treaty with Indigenous Australians, little progress had been made. Rather than delivering a speech, Yothu Yindi turned that frustration into music.

Blending Yolngu language, traditional Indigenous music, rock, and contemporary production, the result felt both deeply rooted in culture and completely forward-looking at the same time.

What makes the song so important is that it manages to be both deeply specific and universally relevant. It speaks to questions of identity, recognition, and belonging while remaining unmistakably Australian.

5. You Am I – “Berlin Chair” (1993)

Australian alternative rock reached a new level during the 1990s, and few songs represent that era better than “Berlin Chair.”

Built around one of the most memorable guitar hooks in Australian music, the song helped cement You Am I as one of the country’s defining rock bands.

What makes it endure is the balance. Vulnerability without self-pity. Big melodies without losing edge. Confidence without excess.

There is a reason people still bring this song up whenever conversations turn to the greatest Australian guitar records.

6. Silverchair – “Israel’s Son” (1995)

When people talk about Silverchair, “Tomorrow” usually dominates the conversation. Spend enough time around Australian rock fans though, and eventually somebody will bring up “Israel’s Son.”

Heavy, aggressive, and astonishingly confident for a band whose members were still teenagers, the song showed there was far more to Silverchair than being labelled Australia’s answer to grunge.

It remains one of the most explosive moments in Australian rock history and a reminder of just how extraordinary the band’s early years really were.

7. The Vines – “Get Free” (2002)

In the early 2000s, it felt like The Vines were everywhere.

“Get Free” arrived during a period when Australian rock suddenly found itself back in the global conversation. Chaotic, explosive, and completely unconcerned with being polished, the song became one of the defining tracks of the garage-rock revival.

More than two decades later, it still feels unpredictable. Like it could fall apart at any moment, yet somehow never does.

8. Sticky Fingers – “Australia Street” (2013)

If you were introduced to Australian alternative music during the 2010s, there is a good chance “Australia Street” was part of that journey.

The song arrived during a period when Australian indie and alternative music was finding a new generation of listeners, and somehow managed to feel instantly familiar while sounding unlike much else around it.

Blending indie rock, reggae, and laid-back storytelling, Sticky Fingers created something that felt distinctly Australian without relying on just clichés or nostalgia.

More than a decade later, it remains one of those songs that instantly transports people back to a particular moment in their lives.

9. Dr Sure’s Unusual Practice – “No Pigs” (2025)

The first time we heard “No Pigs,” we weren’t entirely sure whether to laugh, feel uncomfortable, or immediately start another replay.

Dr Sure’s Unusual Practice have always had a talent for wrapping serious ideas inside songs that feel playful on the surface, and this might be one of the sharpest examples of that approach.

Beneath the driving energy and absurd imagery sits a song about power, surveillance, authority, and the systems that shape everyday life. What makes the track particularly interesting is that it never settles for a simple protest anthem. Instead, it feels paranoid, satirical, and deliberately exaggerated.

Pigs appear everywhere throughout the song: in basements, ceilings, webcams, and parliament. The image becomes less about individuals and more about the feeling of living inside structures that constantly watch, control, and influence the world around us.

That tension has always existed within Australian music. From artists questioning authority to musicians exploring inequality and institutional power, some of the country’s most compelling songs have emerged from asking uncomfortable questions.

10. Drifting Clouds – “Rarrandharr” (2026)

One of the easiest mistakes people make when talking about Australian music is assuming the story begins and ends in the major cities.

“Rarrandharr” is a reminder that some of the country’s most fascinating music is being created far from Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane.

The first time we heard the song, it felt like the soundtrack to a character wandering through a forgotten desert town somewhere between a Clint Eastwood film and a 1970s disco fever dream.

Drifting Clouds, who proudly describe themselves as “the most chill band in Arnhem Land,” bring something completely different to Australian music. There is a warmth, looseness, and sense of place running throughout “Rarrandharr” that makes it feel unlike almost anything else we have heard recently.

Written by Terry Guyula while touring in Melbourne, thousands of kilometres away from home, the song reflects on the end of Rarrandharr, the hot dry season recognised within Yolngu culture. Yet beneath the seasonal imagery sits something deeper: distance, memory, family, and time.

Final Thoughts

One of the things we love most about Australian music is how difficult it is to pin down.

The songs on this list sound nothing alike. A punk classic from Brisbane, an Indigenous anthem, a garage-rock explosion, a protest song, and a track from Arnhem Land about changing seasons should not sit comfortably beside one another.

Yet somehow they do.

That diversity is part of what makes Australian music so fascinating. Every generation seems to find its own way of telling Australian stories, whether through loud guitars, sharp social commentary, or sounds that challenge expectations entirely.

These ten songs are only a small part of that story, but they are a good place to start if you want to understand why Australian music continues to feel different.

Every Friday, Sound Under curates the best of Australian alternative music: fresh releases, overlooked gems, rising artists, and songs worth spending real time with.

Whether you’re driving down the coast, walking through the city late at night, or simply tired of playlists chosen by algorithms, these picks are built differently. This isn’t about hype cycles or whatever is trending for 48 hours. It’s about music with replay value, personality, and something real inside it.

No artist is too early. No sound is too left-field, and no scene is too small.

Here’s this week’s Picks:

Chapter One — Even Hannah

There is something refreshing about hearing a band sound genuinely excited about what comes next. For Even Hannah, “Chapter One” feels exactly like that moment.

The Australian indie-rock outfit have been steadily building momentum over the last few years through energetic performances, big guitar hooks, and the kind of songwriting that feels built for crowded rooms. While many bands spend years searching for an identity, Even Hannah increasingly sound like a group growing more confident with every release.

“Chapter One” arrives as the beginning of a new wave of music for the band, and there is a sense of ambition running through everything surrounding the release. The band themselves joked about countless mix revisions and even taking out a bank loan to get the song across the finish line, but beneath the humour sits something important: this is a track they clearly believe in.

What we love most about “Chapter One” is the feeling behind it. Every band has a first chapter, a turning point, or a moment where things begin to click into place. Whether this becomes that moment for Even Hannah remains to be seen, but it certainly sounds like the start of something worth paying attention to.

Lunch Money — Radio Free Alice

Few bands in Australia are building momentum quite like Radio Free Alice right now, and “Lunch Money” shows exactly why.

The Melbourne post-punk outfit have built their reputation on sharp songwriting, restless energy, and an ability to make emotionally complex stories feel immediate. While many songs about leaving home focus on the person chasing something bigger, “Lunch Money” flips that perspective.

Instead, the song focuses on the person left behind.

There is something deeply relatable about watching somebody move on while you remain in the same place, wondering whether they escaped something you never quite managed to leave yourself.

What makes “Lunch Money” so effective is that Radio Free Alice never overplay their hand. The song moves with confidence, balancing emotional weight with the band’s trademark sense of urgency. It feels like another step forward for a band that continues to establish themselves as one of the most exciting names in Australian guitar music.

Got Time — Rum Jungle

Rum Jungle have built a reputation for writing the kind of indie-rock songs that sound effortless on the surface while quietly carrying something more thoughtful underneath. “Got Time” is a perfect example of that balance.

From the first listen, the track feels bright, warm, and endlessly replayable. The guitars bounce along with the kind of laid-back confidence that has become a hallmark of the band, making it easy to simply enjoy the ride.

Throughout the track, Rum Jungle repeatedly return to the idea that time is both our greatest asset and the one thing we can never get back. Lines about desire, ambition, relationships, and the relentless passing of days create a subtle tension between wanting everything and recognising that life only gives us so much room to chase it.

What we love most about “Got Time” is that it never becomes preachy. Instead, the band package those reflections inside one of the most infectious indie-rock tracks we have heard this month. It feels like the soundtrack to a summer afternoon, while quietly reminding you not to waste it.

Trackstar — The Halves

The Halves have spent the last few years quietly carving out a space for themselves within Australia’s alternative scene, blending post-punk intensity with the melodic instincts of indie rock.

Originating in Brisbane before establishing themselves in Melbourne, the band thrive in the space between tension and release.

“Trackstar” continues that tradition. The guitars feel urgent, the rhythms constantly push forward, and there is a restless energy running throughout the track.

More than anything though, “Trackstar” is a reminder of why guitar music remains so compelling when it is done well. Sharp songwriting, emotional weight, and a band completely committed to the feeling of the song. Sometimes that is all you need.

Hurracane — DMA’S

Few bands understand the relationship between melody and melancholy quite like DMA’S. Over the years they have built a catalogue filled with songs that feel massive enough for festival crowds while still carrying deeply personal emotions at their core. “Hurracane” continues that tradition beautifully.

At first glance, the song feels straightforward. But underneath that anthemic exterior is a song about memory, loss, and the lingering impact certain people leave behind long after they have gone.

The repeated image of somebody crashing through your mind “like a hurricane” perfectly captures the feeling of a memory that refuses to stay buried. No matter how much time passes, some people continue to leave their mark on us, resurfacing unexpectedly and changing the emotional weather all over again.

What makes the track particularly effective is that DMA’S take feelings of heartbreak, longing, and reflection and transform them into something uplifting rather than devastating. The result is a song that feels both nostalgic and hopeful at the same time.

Every Friday, Sound Under spotlights the best alternative music beneath the surface.

Got a track we should hear?
Tag @soundunderau on Instagram or send us a DM.

Every Friday, Sound Under curates the best of Australian alternative music: fresh releases, overlooked gems, rising artists, and songs worth spending real time with.

Whether you’re driving down the coast, walking through the city late at night, or simply tired of playlists chosen by algorithms, these picks are built differently. This isn’t about hype cycles or whatever is trending for 48 hours. It’s about music with replay value, personality, and something real inside it.

No artist is too early. No sound is too left-field, and no scene is too small.

Here’s this week’s Picks:

Are You Getting High — The Rubens

There is a good chance this is the grooviest song from this week’s picks. From the moment the rhythm kicks in, “Are You Getting High” feels warm, effortless, and strangely uplifting.

It is the kind of track that slides perfectly into a long walk, a road trip, or a sunny afternoon playlist. In fact, it has been on repeat for us lately during walks, and if you are not paying close attention to the lyrics, you could easily mistake it for a feel-good indie-rock anthem.

That is what makes the song so interesting.

Beneath the groove, the catchy hooks, and the laid-back energy sits a song about heartbreak, acceptance, and the uncomfortable reality of watching somebody move on before you have fully figured out how to do the same. Rather than approaching that feeling through sadness or bitterness, The Rubens wrap it inside one of the most infectious compositions they have released in recent memory.

The contrast works beautifully. The music feels light on its feet, but emotionally there is a lingering sense of uncertainty running throughout the track.

The Rubens have described the song as being about watching an ex move on and finding yourself caught somewhere between acceptance and heartbreak. You want to be happy for them, and maybe part of you is, but another part is still wrestling with the reality that they are no longer yours. That emotional tension sits at the heart of the song.

What we love most though is how easy The Rubens make all of this feel. “Are You Getting High” is a heartbreaker disguised as a groove-filled indie-rock track, and that tension between the music and the message is exactly why it works so well.

Too Close To The Sun — Foxblood

Foxblood are one of those bands that make you wonder how they managed to stay off your radar for so long. The Melbourne outfit have been active since 2016, releasing their debut project that same year, but after spending time with their latest album Patchwork & Standby, it becomes obvious that this is a band that have spent years refining their craft.

What immediately stands out about Foxblood is their ability to blend multiple genres and influences without ever sounding confused about who they are.

Tracks like “Occam’s Razor,” “Limerence,” and “Left For The Crows” have been on heavy rotation for us, but “Too Close To The Sun” might be one of the album’s most emotionally compelling moments.

The song feels centred around disillusionment, self-destruction, and the painful process of realising that somebody — or something — was never quite what you believed it to be.

The recurring reference to Icarus is particularly powerful. In Greek mythology, Icarus flew too close to the sun despite warnings not to, ultimately causing his downfall. Here, Foxblood use that imagery to explore the consequences of ignoring red flags, placing faith in the wrong people, and repeatedly walking into situations that you know might end badly.

Throughout the song, there is a constant tension between awareness and repetition. Lines like “Could she fool me a third time?” suggest somebody fully aware of the cycle they are trapped in, yet still unable to completely break free from it. The repeated question becomes less about the other person and more about the narrator confronting their own willingness to keep returning.

If Patchwork & Standby is your introduction to Foxblood like it was ours, “Too Close To The Sun” is a strong reminder that this is a band worth diving deeper into.

Melodrama — Joe Mungovan

Joe Mungovan has quietly built a reputation as one of Australia’s most uplifting singer-songwriters, blending folk, indie-pop, and feel-good songwriting into music that feels both thoughtful and effortlessly approachable. His songs often carry a sense of optimism without feeling naïve, and “Melodrama” might be one of the best examples of that balance.

In the current environment the world finds itself in, “Melodrama” feels like exactly the kind of song we need more of.

This has been our morning song lately. There is something about the warmth of the melody, the sense of movement, and the overall energy of the track that simply makes you feel grateful to wake up and experience another day.

What makes the song particularly powerful is how it contrasts life’s chaos with a surprisingly simple message. Throughout the track, Mungovan acknowledges the endless cycles we all seem trapped inside — relationships, mistakes, heartbreak, uncertainty, and the feeling of having to start over again and again. Yet instead of becoming cynical, the song chooses optimism.

Depending on your perspective, it can be read as frustration, resilience, acceptance, or all three at once. Life keeps throwing challenges at us, relationships remain complicated, and people continue making mistakes. Yet somehow we keep getting up every morning and doing it all over again.

Rarrandharr — Drifting Clouds

There are some songs that immediately paint a picture in your head before you’ve seen a music video, read the lyrics, or even looked up the band. “Rarrandharr” did exactly that for us. The first time we heard it, it felt like the soundtrack to a character wandering through a forgotten desert town somewhere between a Clint Eastwood film and a 1970s disco fever dream — dressed in the loudest outfit imaginable, dancing their way towards absolutely nowhere in particular.

More importantly though, this song is the perfect antidote to anyone who claims Australian music all sounds the same.

Drifting Clouds, who proudly describe themselves as “the most chill band in Arnhem Land,” bring something completely different to this week’s picks. There is a warmth, looseness, and sense of place running throughout “Rarrandharr” that makes it feel unlike anything else we’ve heard recently.

What makes the song particularly beautiful is the story behind it. While the Western world often talks about four seasons, Yolngu culture recognises six distinct seasons, each carrying its own environmental, cultural, and spiritual significance. Rarrandharr marks the hot, dry season, and this song reflects on its ending as the land prepares to move into a colder, wetter period.

Yet beneath the seasonal imagery sits something much deeper.

Written by Terry Guyula while touring in Melbourne, thousands of kilometres away from home, the song becomes a meditation on distance, memory, family, and the natural cycles that connect them all. The changing season mirrors the passing of time itself, while references to grandparents, parents, children, and loved ones who have passed away give the song an emotional weight that quietly unfolds beneath its joyful surface.

What we love most about “Rarrandharr” is that despite those themes, the song never feels heavy. Quite the opposite. There is an infectious sense of celebration running through it. The rhythms are playful, the energy is uplifting, and the whole thing feels like it exists to bring people together rather than pull them apart.

Sometimes music teaches you something new about the world. Sometimes it simply makes you smile. “Rarrandharr” somehow manages to do both at the same time.

Cold Shoulder — Liv Cartledge

Sometimes a song does not need huge production, complex arrangements, or grand concepts to leave an impression. Sometimes all it takes is a great voice, strong songwriting, and somebody who knows exactly how to deliver a line. “Cold Shoulder” is one of those songs.

This is the first time we have come across Liv Cartledge, and based on this track alone, we will definitely be exploring more of her catalogue.

What immediately stands out is her vocal performance. There is a natural confidence and emotional clarity to the way she sings that makes every line feel believable.

Thematically, “Cold Shoulder” feels like a song about reclaiming your sense of self after spending too long giving your energy to somebody who never quite deserved it. Throughout the track there is a lingering feeling of disappointment, but also a growing sense of independence. Rather than dwelling on heartbreak, Liv seems more interested in the moment where you finally realise somebody’s hold over you is beginning to fade.

For us, “Cold Shoulder” was one of those tracks that immediately made us curious about the artist behind it. And honestly, that might be the highest compliment we can give a song.

Every Friday, Sound Under spotlights the best alternative music beneath the surface.

Got a track we should hear?
Tag @soundunderau on Instagram or send us a DM.

Every Friday, Sound Under curates the best of Australian alternative music: fresh releases, overlooked gems, rising artists, and songs worth spending real time with.

Whether you’re driving down the coast, walking through the city late at night, or simply tired of playlists chosen by algorithms, these picks are built differently. This isn’t about hype cycles or whatever is trending for 48 hours. It’s about music with replay value, personality, and something real inside it.

No artist is too early. No sound is too left-field, and no scene is too small.

Here’s this week’s Picks:

Cyanide — Roxferry

Ever since forming in 2018, brothers Clay and Jake Teiffel have been building Roxferry into one of the most exciting garage-rock bands in Australia. Time and time again, they have delivered the kind of music that reminds you why loud guitars, big riffs, and raw energy never go out of style. “Cyanide” is another perfect example of that.

From the moment the guitars kick in, the track feels built for people who still believe rock music should make you want to turn the volume all the way up. The riffs are sharp, driving, and packed with the kind of urgency that keeps the song constantly moving forward, while the rhythm section gives everything a sense of momentum that feels impossible to ignore.

Lyrically, “Cyanide” seems to revolve around feelings of emotional exhaustion, disillusionment, and slowly fading under the weight of somebody else’s actions or expectations.

What we love most about Roxferry is their ability to make classic rock influences feel alive. There are traces of garage rock, hard rock, and old-school rock and roll throughout “Cyanide,” but the band never feel trapped by those influences.

If you are the kind of person who still gets excited by massive guitar riffs, driving rock choruses, and songs that demand to be played loud on a long drive, “Cyanide” will probably be right up your alley.

Guns and Little Girls — Tori Forsyth

This is not the first time Tori Forsyth has appeared in our Weekly Picks. The last time we featured her was for “You and Me,” a song that showcased a much softer and more intimate side of her songwriting. “Guns and Little Girls” feels like it comes from an entirely different emotional universe.

Where “You and Me” felt vulnerable and reflective, “Guns and Little Girls” arrives with its teeth bared.

Built around themes of resilience, self-preservation, and navigating a world that often feels hostile, the song carries an underlying tension that never fully lets up. From the opening lines, Forsyth sounds like somebody who has been through the fire before and has no intention of backing down now.

What makes the track particularly compelling is the contrast between the imagery and the message underneath it. References to rifles, missiles, war cries, and survival are less about conflict itself and more about endurance. The repeated refrain of “Same game, more players, new aim” captures the feeling of constantly facing new challenges while realising the battle itself never truly changes.

What we admire most about Tori Forsyth is her ability to move between completely different emotional worlds without losing her identity as a songwriter. “Guns and Little Girls” proves once again that she is one of Australia’s most compelling storytellers, capable of turning personal struggle into something powerful, defiant, and impossible to ignore.

Franken$tein — Vlads

We have spoken about Vlads before and why they feel like one of the most exciting bands currently emerging from Australia’s underground scene. What has always stood out about them is their willingness to push beyond expectations rather than settle into a comfortable formula. “Franken$tein” might be the clearest example of that yet.

Honestly, this is not a song we were expecting from them.

Compared to some of their previous work, “Franken$tein” feels like a dramatic shift both sonically and thematically. The track leans heavily into a gritty, aggressive, and fast-paced punk-infused indie-rock sound that immediately feels more chaotic and confrontational.

What makes the track particularly interesting is how perfectly it aligns with the band’s live identity. Vlads have often described their performances as intense, unpredictable, and completely unhinged in the best possible way, and “Franken$tein” feels like the recorded version of that energy.

There is also something fitting about the title itself. Like its namesake creation, the track feels stitched together from different impulses, emotions, and bursts of energy.

More than anything though, this track is a reminder of why we keep coming back to Vlads. Just when you think you understand what kind of band they are, they throw a curveball that completely changes the conversation.

Time for the Needy — egoism

If there is one song from this week’s picks that has been stuck in our heads the most, it is probably “Time for the Needy.” From the opening moments, the track is powered by an incredibly addictive guitar hook that loops its way through the song and refuses to leave your brain long after it finishes.

Sonically, this is easily one of the most upbeat and instantly catchy tracks in this week’s selection.

EGOISM have always had a knack for blending indie-pop, dream-pop, and alternative influences into something effortlessly replayable, and “Time for the Needy” feels like another masterclass in that approach. Everything feels light on its feet, melodic, and deceptively easy-going.

What makes the song interesting though is the tension between its bright exterior and the dynamics unfolding within the lyrics. Beneath the shimmering guitars and infectious hooks is a story built around emotional distance, attraction, and the blurry line between genuine connection and convenience. Throughout the song, there is a constant push and pull between wanting closeness and keeping people at arm’s length.

What we love most though is how effortlessly EGOISM make all of this feel. The songwriting never feels heavy-handed, the melodies never stop moving, and that endlessly replayable riff ties everything together beautifully.

Space Song — Maia Toakley

There are some artists who immediately grab your attention through volume, intensity, or spectacle. Maia Toakley does the exact opposite.

What makes “Space Song” so captivating is the way she draws you in through pure presence. From the moment she starts singing, there is something magnetic about her voice. Every word feels intentional, and there is a quiet intimacy to her delivery that makes you want to lean in and listen closely.

At its core, “Space Song” feels like a reflection on perspective, self-belief, and the desire to step outside your own fears. The recurring image of looking down from space becomes a powerful metaphor throughout the track.

Lines like “What would I do to see it all from space? I think that I’d feel less afraid” perfectly capture that feeling. There is a vulnerability running through the song, but it is paired with a growing sense of confidence and self-discovery.

The writing allows uncertainty and hope to exist side by side. Whether she is tracing the lines on her skin, holding onto a distant dream, or watching the stars tessellate above her, there is a sense that she is slowly learning to trust herself.

More than anything though, “Space Song” is a song that gently reminds us that sometimes the perspective we are searching for has been inside us all along.

Every Friday, Sound Under spotlights the best alternative music beneath the surface.

Got a track we should hear?
Tag @soundunderau on Instagram or send us a DM.

Every Friday, Sound Under curates the best of Australian alternative music: fresh releases, overlooked gems, rising artists, and songs worth spending real time with.

Whether you’re driving down the coast, walking through the city late at night, or simply tired of playlists chosen by algorithms, these picks are built differently. This isn’t about hype cycles or whatever is trending for 48 hours. It’s about music with replay value, personality, and something real inside it.

No artist is too early. No sound is too left-field, and no scene is too small.

Here’s this week’s Picks:

Phins Up — Phil and The Blanks

Phil and The Blanks feel like the kind of band that exist purely because making serious music all the time would be incredibly boring. Even their own band description paints them as “a bunch of chancers chasing a pointless dream,” which honestly tells you almost everything you need to know about the energy they bring.

“PHINS UP” might be one of the funniest and most strangely charming songs we have heard in a while. Built around a modern love story and an oddly sincere tribute to the Redcliffe Dolphins rugby league team, the track feels like it should not work at all yet somehow completely does.

The hook especially carries this glossy early-2000s reggae-pop energy that weirdly recalls Mysterious Girl, while the playful storytelling and deliberately unserious tone bring back memories of Colt 45 era comedy rap and pub storytelling.

The funniest part is that the band themselves describe it as “reggae has probably never sounded so white,” and honestly, that self-awareness is exactly what makes the song work. Underneath all the silliness is a band that clearly understands hooks, personality, and how to make a track feel genuinely fun rather than forced.

There is also something very Australian about “PHINS UP.” The references to local rugby culture, the slightly awkward charm, the loose storytelling, the feeling that the entire song could soundtrack either a beach party or a drunken pub singalong after a Dolphins game — it all feels incredibly specific in the best way possible.

Fun 4 You — Charli Lucas

This is one of our favourite songs from this week’s picks. Charli Lucas feels like the kind of pop artist who understands that great songwriting is not always about saying the most complex thing possible, but about capturing emotions in a way that feels painfully familiar.

Between the storytelling, the composition, and the subtle emotional tension running underneath the production, “Fun 4 You” ends up feeling far heavier than its bright indie-pop exterior initially suggests.

Sonically, the song feels upbeat, catchy, and almost carefree at times, but underneath that sits the heavy ache of sudden heartbreak and emotional confusion. The entire track feels built around that strange phase after a breakup where people convince themselves they are moving on while quietly falling apart underneath it all.

Most importantly though, the song just feels incredibly well constructed. Charli Lucas clearly understands how to build emotional tension within pop songwriting without sacrificing replay value, and that balance is exactly what makes “Fun 4 You” so effective.

Trocadero — Ricky Neil Jr.

“TROCADERO” feels like the kind of indie-pop song that completely pulls you in through its energy before you even realise how emotionally heavy it actually is.

Sonically, the track leans heavily into dance-pop and disco-inspired textures, filled with movement, groove, and this glossy nightlife atmosphere that makes it incredibly easy to get lost inside. It is the kind of song that almost tricks you into dancing through emotional emptiness.

What makes the track so compelling though is the tension sitting underneath all that brightness.

Ricky Neil Jr. described the song as being about “how badly I want new stuff but how lonely I get when I realise the things that make me feel safe and loved aren’t there,” and that emotional contradiction becomes the entire heart of the track.

The excitement of wanting more, buying more, chasing comfort through material things — only to suddenly realise none of it actually fills the emotional space you were trying to escape from.

The result is a track that feels equally suited for a late-night dancefloor or a lonely walk home afterwards, which is probably exactly why it works so well.

Those Shoes You March In — Gigi.

We recently spoke about Public Figures and how their debut EP Figure It Out! felt like a band arriving with far more confidence and identity than most acts usually do. There was already a strong sense of tension, personality, and emotional instinct running through those songs, particularly in the way they balanced sharp punk energy with vulnerability.

What makes “Those Shoes You March In” so interesting then is hearing a completely different side of Gigi Argiro outside of that band environment.

While Public Figures thrive on urgency and confrontation, this debut solo release feels far more introspective and emotionally exposed. Rooted heavily in the 90s alternative rock and guitar-driven songwriting that shaped them growing up, the track carries a warmth and emotional openness that feels deeply personal.

Lyrically and emotionally, “Those Shoes You March In” feels centred around self-discovery, relationships, and the uncomfortable process of growing into yourself.

“Those Shoes You March In” feels like the beginning of an artist allowing people to see a side of themselves that perhaps did not fully fit within the framework of their other projects — and that honesty is exactly what makes the track resonate.

Invisible Man — The Beefs

There is something very distinctly Australian about the core idea behind “Invisible Man.” The song revolves around a prawn fisherman lurking around in the dark when he is not working, but underneath that specific imagery is a much broader reflection on people who live outside normal routines — nightshift workers, FIFO workers, and the kind of people who quietly keep things moving while the rest of the world sleeps.

What makes the track hit so well though is that The Beefs channel it through this classic rock energy that feels rugged, loose, and incredibly alive. The guitars throughout the track are fantastic, carrying that warm, driving sound that instantly makes you want to turn the volume up louder than you probably should.

There is also something cinematic about “Invisible Man.” The song genuinely feels like the soundtrack to somebody drifting through empty streets, truck stops, pubs, highways, and late-night worksites while everybody else is asleep.

More than anything though, this is just one of those songs built for long drives. Windows down, music loud, somewhere between exhaustion and freedom. The Beefs understand exactly how to capture that feeling, and that is what makes “Invisible Man” such an enjoyable listen.

Every Friday, Sound Under spotlights the best alternative music beneath the surface.

Got a track we should hear?
Tag @soundunderau on Instagram or send us a DM.

A lot of artists today jump from one band wagon to another depending on what is hot, just to seem like they care about things and get more followers along the way.

In a day and age where being seen and heard everywhere is what most musicians and bands are looking to get, there we have the Australian band Dr Sure’s Unusual Practice, the baby of frontman Dougal Shaw, who is not only standing up for what he believes in, but has shown that through actions again and again since the inception of the band in 2019.

Not too long ago in February 2026, all of their music was taken down from streaming platforms.

At a time where most artists are trying to get onto as many playlists as possible and constantly stay visible online, the move felt almost bizarre.

But the reasoning behind it was surprisingly simple. Shaw spoke about wanting to be more intentional with where the band’s music exists and what systems it supports. He talked about growing uncomfortable participating in platforms that reduce art into endlessly available content while artists themselves are expected to constantly feed algorithms just to survive.

Importantly, the decision was not framed as some dramatic moral statement. There was no “we are better than everyone else” energy around it. If anything, it felt more like somebody openly questioning the systems musicians have slowly accepted as normal over the last decade.

And the more you think about it, the harder it becomes to ignore how strange music culture has started to feel recently.

The music itself feels like a reaction to modern life

Part of what makes Dr Sure’s Unusual Practice so interesting in the middle of this whole conversation is that their music already sounds like it is reacting to the exact world that created AI music culture in the first place.

Their records are chaotic, funny, anxious, political and weirdly emotional all at once. Across their discography, the band jumps between post-punk, synth punk, art rock and new wave while constantly pulling apart modern Australian life in the process.

A lot of the band’s writing revolves around modern alienation, housing, capitalism, burnout, identity and the weird disconnect that comes from existing online all the time. There is frustration running through the music, but there is also humour and warmth sitting underneath it.

It never sounds like the band is trying to position themselves above everybody else or pretend they have everything figured out. If anything, the songs feel like people trying to make sense of the mess in real time.

That messiness is exactly what feels important now.

Because the more AI-generated music starts appearing online, the more noticeable it becomes when music actually sounds lived-in. AI can already imitate genres, structures and aesthetics pretty convincingly, but it still struggles to recreate the feeling of actual people bouncing off each other creatively. The strange chemistry that happens inside bands. The moments that probably should not work but somehow become the most memorable parts of a record.

Bands like Dr Sure’s Unusual Practice sound deeply personal because their music is full of tension, contradictions and unpredictability. Nothing about it feels designed purely for algorithms or passive listening.

Which is probably why their decision to pull their music from streaming platforms felt so connected to the art itself. The band has always sounded like they were questioning the systems surrounding modern life. Eventually that questioning moved beyond the lyrics and into real actions too.

Music discovery does not feel the same anymore

There was a time where finding a new band genuinely felt exciting. You would hear about artists through friends, zines, forums, community radio stations, opening acts at tiny gigs, or some badly recorded live video uploaded online years ago. Music discovery felt messy and personal.

People also listened differently, Albums were something you sat with properly. You learned tracklists, lyrics, artwork, weird transitions between songs, hidden details buried deep inside records. Sometimes albums took weeks or months to fully click, but that was part of the experience.

Now music often feels like it is designed to pass by as quickly as possible.

Streaming completely changed listening habits. Songs became shorter, hooks arrived quicker, and artists suddenly had to compete for attention every second. Instead of disappearing for two or three years to make a concept album, musicians are now expected to constantly release content just to remain visible.

Even the way people talk about music has changed, everything revolves around numbers now. Monthly listeners, streams, engagement, algorithm placement. The conversation around art increasingly feels tied to performance metrics rather than actual connection.

Music has become more accessible than ever before, yet somehow a lot of it feels less meaningful.

Album culture has not disappeared completely, but it definitely feels weaker than it once did. Fewer people seem to sit with records long enough to build relationships with them. Discovery feels less organic now, like music is being delivered to people rather than stumbled upon.

Then AI entered the conversation and pushed all of this even further.

But acting like AI is purely evil misses the point too

At the same time, reducing AI to some evil force destroying creativity feels far too simplistic. Music history is full of moments where new technology scared people. Synthesisers were criticised, Sampling was dismissed as stealing. Digital recording was blamed for ruining warmth and authenticity, but eventually artists found ways to use those tools creatively.

AI can absolutely become part of that evolution if it is used carefully.

For independent musicians especially, AI tools can remove barriers that previously made creating art far more difficult. Artists can use it to organise ideas, restore recordings, experiment with arrangements, create visuals, or speed up technical processes that would otherwise require money and resources they simply do not have.

The problem is not the technology itself, it is the culture surrounding it and more importantly how people and corporations are using it.

Right now most platforms reward speed, volume, and visibility over depth. AI is often being used to flood the internet with more disposable content rather than helping artists create more meaningful work. Instead of supporting creativity, it risks flattening music even further into background noise.

So where does music go from here?

That is what makes Dr Sure’s Unusual Practice removing their music from streaming platforms feel bigger than just one band making a personal choice.

Whether intentionally or not, it pushes back against this growing idea that music should always be instantly available, endlessly consumable, and constantly optimised for algorithms.

Maybe the answer is not rejecting technology entirely because realistically that is never going to happen. AI is here now and it will inevitably become part of music culture moving forward. But there is still a huge difference between using technology as a creative tool and allowing it to completely replace the personal side of art.

Because despite everything, people still crave that connection from music. You still see it when local scenes thrive, when genuinely great albums slowly build cult followings, or when songs become attached to specific moments in people’s lives for years afterward.

Maybe that is the thing worth protecting most. Not nostalgia for older ways of consuming music, but the idea that art should still feel connected to real people saying real things, rather than endless content generated to fill silence.

Every Friday, Sound Under curates the best of Australian alternative music: fresh releases, overlooked gems, rising artists, and songs worth spending real time with.

Whether you’re driving down the coast, walking through the city late at night, or simply tired of playlists chosen by algorithms, these picks are built differently. This isn’t about hype cycles or whatever is trending for 48 hours. It’s about music with replay value, personality, and something real inside it.

No artist is too early. No sound is too left-field, and no scene is too small.

Here’s this week’s Picks:

Raindrops — Headwreck

Headwreck feel like genuine stars in the making. The Brisbane-based nu-metalcore band have been quietly building a cult-like following over the last few years, and once you hear the music, it becomes pretty obvious why.

They understand something a lot of heavy bands forget: aggression alone is not enough. The songs still need movement, personality, and moments people actually want to come back to.

That balance is where Headwreck really thrive.

“Raindrops” is chaotic, explosive, and packed with energy, but underneath all the heaviness is a strong sense of groove and melody that stops the track from becoming one-dimensional. The band know exactly when to hit hard and when to pull things back into something more hook-driven.

The breakdowns throughout the song are some of the most satisfying we have heard from this lane in a while, but what really makes the track stick is the contrast between those heavier moments and the vocal harmonies layered throughout. Even the hook carries this huge melodic quality that gets trapped in your head almost immediately.

What makes Headwreck connect beyond just heavy music audiences is that they never let the music become overly self-serious. Even at their heaviest, there is still bounce, swagger, and fun inside the chaos.

If they keep refining this sound the way they have been, it genuinely feels like Headwreck are going to become one of the breakout heavy bands in Australia over the next few years.

Heartless — South Summit

South Summit have quietly become one of the most interesting bands coming out of Western Australia right now. What makes them stand out is how naturally they blend reggae, indie rock, hip hop, alternative, and pop influences into something that still feels cohesive and unmistakably theirs.

“Heartless,” the fourth single from their upcoming album Run It Back (dropping June 12), feels like another strong example of that versatility. The music video, filmed at the summit of Bluff Knoll — one of Western Australia’s highest mountains — perfectly matches the emotional openness running through the song itself.

“Heartless” works because of the tension at its centre.

Lyrically, the song leans heavily into emotional fallout, regret, distance, and the aftermath of a relationship slowly collapsing.

“I blame myself, but you already know”
“I gave my soul, but it still feels cold”

The lyrics carry the weight of heartbreak, but musically the song moves in a completely different direction. Instead of leaning into sadness sonically, South Summit build the track around uplifting melodies, groove-heavy production that almost feels danceable.

In a way, the track flips the traditional heartbreak formula on its head. It becomes less about emotional collapse and more about surviving it.

The chorus especially captures that emotional duality beautifully.

Interestingly, this was also the first song the band began working on for the upcoming album, and after hearing all the singles released so far, this still remains our favourite drop from the project.

Song for Steven — Sonic Reducer

Australia’s punk scene is ridiculous right now. There are so many great bands emerging across the country, and Sonic Reducer are definitely one of the ones we are most excited about at the moment.

Based out of Canberra, the band have been quietly building momentum through a string of strong singles and EP releases, and it already feels like they are moving toward something much bigger.

If you grew up listening to bands like Ramones or Sex Pistols, there is a very good chance Sonic Reducer will connect with you instantly.

Even though “Song for Steven” does not fully sound like a traditional punk track sonically, it still carries that same spirit underneath it all: looseness, emotional honesty, awkwardness, and youthful energy.

“You say you know what I’m on about
But I’m still trying to find what to say”

That line especially feels like the emotional core of the song. There is frustration in it, but also vulnerability — the feeling of not fully understanding yourself yet while everyone around you expects clarity.

“Don’t listen to your mother
Don’t spend your life trying to live it for another”

That line carries the classic punk spirit of individuality and freedom without ever sounding preachy.

They might not be a household name yet, but it genuinely feels like Sonic Reducer are becoming one of the most exciting punk bands emerging in Australia right now.

Too Late To Go Outside — kate moth

We recently discovered kate moth, a Sydney-based band, and we are very glad we did.

On their latest track, “Too Late To Go Outside,” they create a world that feels strangely immersive — like a rollercoaster moving in slow motion inside a dream.

The song feels hazy, intimate, and emotionally distant in a way that gets deeper the longer it plays. Even though there is movement underneath the instrumentation, everything still feels calm and weightless at the same time.

A huge part of that comes from Matt’s vocal performance. There is something incredibly soothing about the delivery throughout the track. Even when the lyrics deal with inner conflict, emotional exhaustion, and falling in and out of consciousness, the vocals somehow make the chaos feel comforting rather than overwhelming.

Lyrically, the song explores isolation, emotional paralysis, overthinking, and the feeling of wanting escape while remaining completely stuck.

It feels like the kind of song you put on alone late at night and suddenly find yourself completely absorbed in without realising it.

Higher Than Usual — Nancy and the Jam Fancys

The first time we heard Nancy and the Jam Fancys, one comparison immediately came to mind: Jim Morrison from The Doors, who is personally my favourite vocalist of all time.

Not because the band are trying to imitate The Doors sonically, but because Lewis Griffin carries a similar kind of unpredictability and charisma in his vocal delivery. There is that same loose, hypnotic energy where it feels like the performance could either completely fall apart or become transcendent at any second, and that tension is exactly what makes it compelling.

“Higher Than Usual” leans fully into that atmosphere.

From the opening line:

“You seem like a fine individual… shame I met you now you seem higher than usual”

the song immediately drops you into this hazy, psychedelic world filled with intoxication, late-night encounters, and blurred emotional states.

The video itself opens with a drug addict taking a hit, setting the tone for what the track is really exploring — not just substance use, but altered states in general. The feeling of people drifting through life disconnected, detached, impulsive, and emotionally elsewhere.

The last major release from the band was their album Swan Songs back in January 2025, and honestly, this track feels like the beginning of a new chapter creatively. There is something sharper, more confident, and more fully realised about the direction they are moving toward here.

If this is where Nancy and the Jam Fancys are heading next, we are very interested to hear what comes after.

Every Friday, Sound Under spotlights the best alternative music beneath the surface.

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There’s a line from AC/DC’s It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ’n’ Roll) that has probably followed every touring band around the world for the last fifty years:

“If you think it’s easy doing one night stands, try playing in a rock ’n’ roll band.”

What’s interesting about that lyric is how little it has aged. If anything, it feels even more relevant now than it did in 1975.

The technology around music has changed completely, the ways artists release songs have evolved, and audiences consume music in fundamentally different ways, yet the core reality behind that line still remains untouched. Building a life around music is difficult, exhausting, financially unstable, and emotionally demanding in ways most people outside of it rarely fully see.

The strange thing about the current moment is that music exists in this constant contradiction. On one side, artists have more tools available to them than ever before. Someone can upload a song from their bedroom in Adelaide, Melbourne, or Perth and potentially have listeners from completely different parts of the world hearing it within hours.

There are fewer gatekeepers than there once were, and discovery itself has become far more democratic than the industry structures that existed twenty or thirty years ago.

At the same time though, actually sustaining a long-term career in music feels increasingly difficult, especially for artists who are trying to build something with depth and identity rather than simply reacting to trends.

This tension feels particularly visible in Australia right now. From the outside, the country still appears to have a thriving live music culture. Tours happen constantly, festivals continue to sell out, and there is never really a shortage of new artists emerging from different scenes around the country.

But underneath all of that, there has also been a growing sense of exhaustion across the industry over the last few years. Touring costs continue rising, smaller venues are disappearing, audiences are more fragmented than they once were, and artists are increasingly expected to function not only as musicians, but also as marketers, content creators, strategists, editors, and personalities online.

For bands especially, the pressure feels uniquely heavy because maintaining a band has always required a level of commitment that goes beyond the music itself.

It is multiple people trying to keep momentum moving in the same direction while balancing completely different personal lives, financial realities, emotional states, and long-term priorities. Even under ideal circumstances, that is difficult to sustain over a long enough period of time.

Which is partly why the indefinite hiatus of Bad//Dreems feels larger than simply another band deciding to step away for a while.

A Band That Always Felt Grounded in Something Real

Bad//Dreems were never just another band filling out festival lineups. Over the last decade, they became one of the defining voices in modern Australian pub rock, not because they reinvented the genre completely, but because they understood what made it resonate in the first place.

Their music always felt grounded in something recognisable. There was humour in it, frustration in it, loneliness in it, and an understanding of suburban Australian life that never felt exaggerated or performative.

That honesty is what made albums like Dogs At Bay, Gutful, and HOO HA! connect with so many people over the years.

The band understood how to capture a very particular emotional texture within Australian life — the boredom, the distance, the dark humour people use to mask disappointment, and the feeling of wanting more while simultaneously feeling stuck in place. But underneath that was often something uglier as well: violence, repression, toxic masculinity, racism, generational frustration, and the emotional damage sitting quietly beneath a lot of Australian suburbia. Even at their loudest, there was always vulnerability underneath the surface of their music.

What made Bad//Dreems particularly important within the Australian landscape was that their songs were not trying to mythologise themselves into something larger than life. They felt closer to conversations overheard outside pubs at closing time, long drives through outer suburbs, or the strange emotional emptiness that can exist even inside loud rooms full of people.

That ability to capture ordinary life without romanticising or mocking it is much harder than it sounds, and it is also part of why the band’s music has aged so well.

Ultra Dundee Feels Like the End of a Circle

Listening to Ultra Dundee now, especially with the knowledge of the hiatus sitting quietly in the background, the emotional weight of the record becomes even more noticeable.

It almost feels like a circle being completed.

Before this album, Dogs At Bay probably felt like the Bad//Dreems record most deeply tied to Adelaide, not just geographically, but emotionally as well.

There was something about that album that captured the feeling of outer suburbs, pub carparks, dead-end jobs, strange local characters, and the kind of restless boredom that quietly sits underneath a lot of Australian life. More than anything, it introduced the emotional world the band would continue returning to over the next 15 years.

Now with Ultra Dundee, the band somehow returns to that same emotional landscape, except this time it feels older, stranger, heavier, and more reflective. There’s still humour throughout the album, still absurdity, still the surreal Australian imagery Bad//Dreems have always been brilliant at writing, but underneath it all there’s also a sense of reckoning with time, identity, memory, mortality, and place.

Even the opening track, “Slaughterhouse ’85”, immediately feels like someone revisiting fragments of their past while trying to understand what any of it actually meant. The song moves through Adelaide imagery almost like memories flashing past a car window — the Q.E.H., Croatian clubs, late-night drives, local fuel stations, knife fights, old ghosts — but none of it feels nostalgic in the traditional sense.

It feels more like someone emotionally tracing the map of where they came from while quietly realising how much time has already disappeared.

Throughout Ultra Dundee, people seem spiritually displaced from themselves, from each other, and sometimes even from the country surrounding them. Characters drift through deserts, pubs, highways, shadowlands, religious hallucinations, collapsing relationships, and strange visions of Australia that feel simultaneously grounded and mythological.

“Shadowland” might be one of the clearest examples of this thread running through the album. The repeated line, “I wake up every morning and forget myself / And the man in the mirror looks like someone else,” feels less like a personal confession and more like the emotional centre of the entire record. The album constantly returns to questions of identity, disconnection, and the uneasy feeling of no longer fully recognising the world around you.

What makes the album compelling is that Bad//Dreems never try to over-explain any of this. The songs feel intentionally fragmented at times, almost dreamlike in the way imagery appears and disappears. Characters emerge briefly before dissolving again. Places feel symbolic as much as physical. Religious references sit beside UFO sightings, highways, pubs, violence, death, and desert landscapes in ways that make Australia itself feel almost mythological and haunted.

That has always been one of Bad//Dreems’ greatest strengths as writers.

Their music rarely presents Australia in simplistic terms. There’s always beauty sitting beside ugliness, humour sitting beside violence, spirituality sitting beside emptiness. Their version of Australia feels deeply human because it allows contradictions to exist naturally rather than forcing neat conclusions.

Knowing the hiatus sits ahead of this album inevitably changes how certain lyrics and themes are interpreted. Songs about time, endings, memory, isolation, and transformation begin carrying extra emotional weight even if they were never written explicitly about the band itself.

The closing track “Afterlife” in particular almost feels like a quiet acceptance of change rather than a dramatic farewell.

What makes Ultra Dundee such a strong final statement (if it does end up becoming that) is that it feels like a band fully settling into themselves creatively and emotionally, trusting atmosphere and honesty more than anything else.

Which, in a strange way, is probably what made Bad//Dreems important in the first place.

The Bigger Problem Facing Australian Music

The difficult reality is that longevity itself has become harder to sustain. Many artists today are operating inside systems where the emotional, financial, and physical demands of maintaining a creative career continue growing while the actual rewards become increasingly unstable.

Touring, which was once one of the few reliable ways for artists to survive financially, has become significantly more expensive, while streaming rarely provides enough meaningful income unless artists reach enormous scale.

At the same time, audiences are consuming more music than ever before, but often in ways that encourage speed rather than deep engagement. Songs move quickly through timelines, playlists refresh constantly, and attention itself has become fragmented across platforms. Within that environment, building something slowly and organically becomes much harder, even for genuinely great artists.

For bands, these pressures often become even more intense because sustaining a group over a long period requires far more than simply continuing to write good songs.

That reality rarely gets discussed properly when conversations around music become overly focused on numbers, visibility, and momentum.

Because the truth is that many important artists are barely surviving long before audiences realise there is even a problem.

What Needs to Change?

This is why conversations around supporting music need to move beyond simply celebrating artists once they are already struggling or disappearing.

If independent music scenes are going to survive long-term, then the ecosystems around artists also need to become sustainable. Smaller venues matter because they give artists places to develop before larger audiences arrive. Independent media matters because scenes cannot survive purely through algorithms.

Audiences showing up consistently matters because music cultures are built through communities, not passive consumption.

There also needs to be a wider cultural shift in how audiences understand success within music. Not every artist is going to become globally massive, and honestly, that should not be the expectation in the first place.

Some of the most important bands within any country’s music culture are the ones that slowly build dedicated communities over years rather than exploding overnight.

But for that kind of artistic growth to survive, there needs to be enough structural support around it to make longevity possible.

Australia is still producing incredible bands. That has never really been the problem. The deeper issue is whether the structures surrounding artists actually allow them to keep creating long enough to fully evolve.

And maybe that is the uncomfortable feeling sitting underneath the hiatus of Bad//Dreems.

Not that a great band reached the end of its creative abilities, but that even for respected, culturally important artists, surviving within the modern music industry can slowly become harder than making the music itself.

But underneath all of that is one of the most influential and layered music scenes in the world.

This is a country that gave the world stadium rock giants, globally influential alternative bands, one of the oldest continuing musical cultures on Earth, and underground scenes that still survive through community radio, DIY venues, and relentless touring.

From Indigenous musical traditions and Australian punk history to psychedelic rock, Triple J, and pub culture, these stories reveal why Australian music has had a much bigger global impact than many people realise.

Here are 25 wild Australian music facts you probably didn’t know.

1) Indigenous Australian music traditions are part of one of the world’s oldest continuing cultures

Long before Australia had recording studios, festivals, or rock bands, Indigenous communities across the continent had already developed deeply spiritual musical traditions tied to storytelling, ceremony, dance, and connection to Country.

These traditions stretch back tens of thousands of years and remain central to Indigenous cultural life today.

2) AC/DC was formed in Sydney by two Scottish brothers

One of the biggest rock bands in history began after Malcolm and Angus Young migrated from Scotland to Australia with their family.

The band was formed in Sydney in 1973, and the name “AC/DC” famously came from the label on their sister’s sewing machine.

3) Australia developed one of the most distinctive pub rock circuits in the world

Before streaming and social media discovery, Australian bands survived by touring constantly through pubs and small venues.

That touring culture became a defining part of Australian music identity throughout the 70s and 80s, forcing artists to become incredible live performers or disappear quickly.

4) Silverchair became international stars while still in school

The members of Silverchair were teenagers from Newcastle when they entered a national demo competition under the name Innocent Criminals.

Soon after winning, their single “Tomorrow” exploded internationally and turned them into one of Australia’s biggest rock exports almost overnight.

5) Triple J helped shape generations of Australian music fans

For decades, Triple J has played a major role in introducing Australian listeners to alternative, independent, and emerging artists.

Its annual Hottest 100 countdown eventually became one of the country’s biggest music traditions.

6) The Bee Gees built much of their early career in Australia

Although many people associate the Bee Gees with the UK and later American disco culture, the brothers spent important formative years in Queensland after moving there as children during the late 1950s.

7) Australia’s live music culture became deeply tied to touring

Because of the country’s geography and relative isolation, touring has always been a major part of Australian music culture.

For many artists, live performance became essential not just creatively, but financially and culturally.

8) Tame Impala started largely as a bedroom recording project

Before becoming one of the defining names in modern psychedelic music, Kevin Parker was recording much of Tame Impala’s early material alone in Perth.

The project slowly evolved from a personal experimental outlet into a global phenomenon.

9) The Saints released one of punk’s most important early records

The Saints released “(I’m) Stranded” in 1976, before many legendary UK punk bands had even released their debut singles.

Today, the song is widely considered one of the foundational records of punk music.

10) Community radio still plays a huge role in Australian music discovery

Even in the streaming era, stations like PBS FM and RRR continue helping independent Australian artists reach new audiences.

For many local scenes, community radio still matters enormously.

11) INXS sold over 70 million records worldwide

What started as a Sydney pub band eventually became one of Australia’s biggest global success stories.

Throughout the 80s and early 90s, INXS became one of the world’s most recognisable rock bands.

12) Australian festivals helped shape entire generations of music fans

Festivals like Big Day Out became far more than concert events.

For many people, they were introductions to entirely new genres, scenes, subcultures, and artists.

13) Australia’s geographic isolation helped many artists develop unique sounds

Because Australia sits relatively far from major global music hubs, many artists ended up building strong local identities before international audiences discovered them.

That isolation often encouraged experimentation instead of trend-chasing.

14) Nick Cave emerged from Melbourne’s chaotic post-punk underground

Before becoming one of modern music’s most respected songwriters, Nick Cave performed with The Birthday Party, a group known for intense and unpredictable live performances.

15) Australia became one of modern psych-rock’s biggest creative hubs

From Tame Impala to King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Australian artists played a major role in the global revival of psychedelic and experimental rock throughout the 2010s.

16) Gotye created one of the defining songs of the 2010s

“Somebody That I Used To Know” became a global phenomenon despite sounding very different from most mainstream pop songs at the time.

Its stripped-back production and emotional storytelling helped it stand out worldwide.

17) Australia’s heavy music scenes run far deeper than many people realise

Across cities like Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide, independent hardcore, punk, metal, and alternative scenes continue thriving through DIY venues, local promoters, and touring communities.

A huge part of that ecosystem still exists outside mainstream visibility.

18) Amyl and the Sniffers rose from pub shows to global stages

Their rise reflects a classic Australian pathway: relentless touring, chaotic live performances, and building momentum through word of mouth long before mainstream recognition arrived.

19) Australian radio censorship often made controversial songs even bigger

Throughout different periods of Australian music history, songs dealing with politics, explicit themes, or social controversy were sometimes restricted from radio play.

In many cases, the attention only made audiences more curious.

20) Melbourne is often considered Australia’s live music capital

The city has long been associated with independent venues, underground scenes, record stores, and strong support for live music culture.

For many Australian artists, Melbourne became a key creative hub.

21) Sia wrote massive global hits before becoming a solo superstar

Before dominating charts under her own name, Sia had already written major songs for artists including Rihanna, Beyoncé, and David Guetta.

22) Australian hip-hop took years to fully embrace local identity

For a long time, Australian hip-hop artists were criticised for sounding “too American.”

Over time, many artists stopped imitating American accents and instead embraced their own local stories, voices, and experiences — helping reshape the culture completely.

23) Many Australian independent artists still operate almost entirely DIY

A huge portion of Australia’s underground music ecosystem still survives through self-funded tours, independent merch, local communities, and artists balancing music alongside everyday jobs.

That DIY mentality remains central to Australian music culture.

24) King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard released five albums in a single year

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard released five albums in a single year—and they’ve done it twice (2017 and 2022).

Most artists struggle to finish one.

25) Australian music has always been far bigger than its stereotypes

For decades, global audiences often reduced Australian music to only a handful of mainstream acts.

But underneath that surface exists a massive ecosystem shaped by Indigenous storytelling, punk scenes, immigrant influences, experimental music, community radio, alternative culture, and generations of artists constantly redefining what Australian music can sound like.

And honestly, this barely scratches the surface.

Australia’s underground scenes have continued evolving far beyond the country’s mainstream exports — something we explored further in our deep dive into The History of Australian Music.

Joy is often the last thing people believe they deserve when going through the darkest phase of their life. But that search for joy is exactly what led Sam Hales from The Jungle Giants to create their fifth album Experiencing Feelings of Joy.

Behind the colourful production and euphoric indie-pop moments sits an album born out of emotional collapse, heartbreak, and creative paralysis. Hales had not only lost someone deeply important in his life, but also the person he had been creating music alongside for years.

For an artist, losing both emotional connection and creative direction at the same time can feel like losing your entire identity. Understandably, that period pushed him into one of the darkest mental spaces of his life.

What eventually gave him a glimpse of light was stumbling onto The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron — a book centred around reconnecting with creativity and rebuilding your relationship with yourself through art.

In many ways, Experiencing Feelings of Joy feels like Hales creating his own version of that process in musical form. The album almost plays like a self-help book disguised as an indie-pop record, documenting someone slowly learning how to feel alive again through creating.

What makes this even more interesting is that you would never immediately guess the emotional state Hales was in when first listening to the album. Sonically, the record opens with warmth, movement, and an almost celebratory energy. Instead of drowning in sadness, Hales chooses to fight through it with colour, rhythm, dancing, and human connection.

That emotional contradiction is captured perfectly on the opening track, which is dedicated to Hales’ mother and already feels destined to become one of the band’s defining songs. Beneath its infectious energy sits a deeply personal tribute to unconditional love, resilience, and the people who keep us grounded when life begins to collapse around us.

When Hales sings:

“Mumma did you know your love is kinda punk
Ain’t no man was stoppin’ you from raisin’ me all on your own”

it becomes clear that this album is not simply about escaping darkness, but about finding the people, memories, and emotions that help you survive it. Even the repeated refrain — “Will you tell me how it feels baby?” — feels less like a hook written for a crowd, and more like someone desperately trying to reconnect with emotion itself.

For perhaps the first time in a Jungle Giants record, Sam Hales feels completely exposed as a songwriter. And that vulnerability is exactly what makes Experiencing Feelings of Joy their most human album yet.

The Search for Joy

What makes Experiencing Feelings of Joy so emotionally interesting is that the album never sounds like it was written from a place of complete healing. Instead, it feels like Sam Hales documenting the process of trying to get there in real time.

Across the album, joy is not presented as a permanent emotional state or some perfect ending waiting at the finish line. It feels more like a conscious decision to keep moving, keep loving, keep dancing, and keep creating even when parts of your life are collapsing underneath you. That tension between emotional pain and sonic euphoria becomes the defining heartbeat of the record.

And sonically, the album fully commits to that idea.

The first four tracks are incredibly upbeat, colourful, and alive. The production constantly pushes towards movement, warmth, rhythm, and connection. Even when the lyrics are dealing with heartbreak, loneliness, uncertainty, or emotional confusion, the compositions themselves almost refuse to stay emotionally stagnant. The music wants to move forward. It wants to breathe, and dance its way through the darkness rather than sit still inside it.

That contrast becomes one of the album’s strongest qualities. Songs about longing, breakups, emotional distance, and vulnerability are wrapped inside some of the brightest and most accessible compositions The Jungle Giants have ever created.

The upbeat nature of the album doesn’t exist to hide the pain. It probably exists because of the pain.

There’s a feeling throughout the project that Sam Hales is using music itself as a way to reconnect with life again. Whether it’s love, friendship, physical touch, community, romance, dancing, or simply being present in a moment, the album constantly searches for emotional experiences that make existence feel meaningful again.

Around the middle of the record, the emotional cracks begin to show more openly. Tracks become slightly more introspective, more reflective, and more emotionally exposed, but the album never fully loses its warmth.

That’s what makes the sequencing of the album so effective. The joy never feels naive, and the sadness never completely consumes the record. Instead, both emotions constantly coexist beside each other.

By the time the album reaches World’s Getting Smaller, the emotional walls fully come down.

The production becomes more stripped back, more spacious, and far more vulnerable than anything that came before it. After an album filled with movement and colour, the closing track almost feels like the moment after the party ends and someone is finally left alone with their thoughts.

It’s easily the most emotionally exposed moment on the record, and perhaps the clearest glimpse into the emotional state Hales was navigating while creating this project.

What makes the ending particularly powerful is that the album never fully resolves its emotions. It doesn’t pretend heartbreak disappears. It doesn’t offer some grand conclusion about healing.

Instead, Experiencing Feelings of Joy understands something far more human: sometimes healing simply means finding enough reasons to keep feeling things again. And that’s exactly what this album does.

Sound Under Top 3 Picks

1) Tell Me How It Feels

There could not have been a more perfect opener for Experiencing Feelings of Joy. In many ways, Tell Me How It Feelsacts as the emotional thesis of the entire album. It captures everything the record is trying to say — love, community, movement, vulnerability, emotional survival, and the search for connection during moments where life feels emotionally overwhelming.

At the same time, it also feels destined to become one of the biggest songs in The Jungle Giants catalogue.

What makes the track so powerful is the contrast at the centre of it. Sonically, the composition is bright, euphoric, danceable, and full of life. But underneath that energy sits someone desperately trying to reconnect with emotion, purpose, and the people around them. That emotional bait-and-switch becomes one of the defining characteristics of the entire album, and this track introduces it perfectly.

The production constantly moves forward with warmth and momentum, while Sam Hales delivers some of the most emotionally open writing of his career.

The emotional core of the song ultimately comes back to love — not just romantic love, but the love of family, home, friendship, memory, and the people that shape who we become. Lines directed towards his mother become some of the most powerful moments on the entire album, grounding the song in something deeply personal rather than purely euphoric.

2) All The Time In The World

At just over five minutes long, All The Time In The World is the longest track on the album — something that almost feels rebellious in an era where attention spans are shrinking and songs are increasingly designed for short-form consumption. But rather than overstaying its welcome, the track slowly pulls you deeper into its emotional warmth with every passing minute.

This is easily some of the finest songwriting on the entire project.

What immediately stands out is just how effortlessly addictive the song is. The hook is arguably the strongest on the album, and one of the reasons the record works so well as a listening experience overall is because of how naturally these songs embed themselves into your head.

There’s a warmth and repetition to many of the melodies that almost feels comforting rather than commercial. The album understands the power of earworms, but it uses them emotionally instead of mechanically.

Sonically, the track fully embraces the euphoric and romantic side of Experiencing Feelings of Joy. The composition feels weightless, patient, and deeply sincere.

That’s what makes the writing feel so effective.

The emotional core of the track is beautifully captured in the chorus:

“We got all the time in the world
And you know you’re my favourite girl
They say love comes, let it unfurl”

There’s something incredibly human about the simplicity of those lines. No overcomplicated metaphors, or emotional games. Just someone trying to hold onto a feeling before life changes again.

3) World’s Getting Smaller

If Tell Me How It Feels represents the emotional heartbeat of the album, then World’s Getting Smaller feels like the emotional aftermath.

This is Sam Hales at his most vulnerable and emotionally exposed. After an album filled with movement, colour, groove, and euphoric compositions, the closing track strips almost everything back. The production becomes quieter, more spacious, and far more intimate, allowing the emotional weight of the writing to sit completely in the foreground.

And that restraint is exactly what makes the song so powerful.

There’s a feeling throughout the track of someone looking back at one of the hardest periods of their life with a clearer perspective. Not necessarily healed, but emotionally aware enough to finally sit with the pain instead of trying to outrun it. Unlike many of the earlier songs on the album that use rhythm and energy as emotional survival mechanisms, World’s Getting Smaller feels like the moment where all distractions disappear and only honesty remains.

And throughout the track, Hales captures a feeling that many people experience after heartbreak — the strange contradiction of living in a world that feels increasingly connected while emotionally feeling further away from someone than ever before.

“If the world that we’re living in is getting smaller
Why do you feel so far away?”

That hook alone carries the emotional weight of the entire song.

What makes the ending of the album especially beautiful is that despite all the heartbreak and emotional distance being described, there’s still love present inside the writing. Even in loss, Hales never fully turns cynical. If anything, the pain exists because the love itself was real.

And perhaps that’s the final message of Experiencing Feelings of Joy.

By ending the album in such a stripped-back and emotionally vulnerable way, The Jungle Giants leave listeners with the clearest glimpse into who Sam Hales really was while making this record — someone trying to rediscover joy while still carrying the weight of everything he had lost.

Very few albums manage to sound this joyful while carrying this much emotional weight underneath them. That’s what makes Experiencing Feelings of Joy such a special record.

At its core, this is not an album about someone who has fully healed or figured life out. It’s an album about someone learning how to survive again through music, movement, love, vulnerability, and creation itself. Sam Hales takes heartbreak, creative paralysis, loneliness, and emotional exhaustion, and somehow transforms those feelings into some of the warmest and most life-affirming songs The Jungle Giants have ever made.

What makes the album resonate so deeply is that it never pretends pain magically disappears. Even in its most euphoric moments, there’s still sadness living underneath the surface. But rather than allowing that darkness to consume the record, Hales chooses to dance through it, sing through it, and create through it. And in many ways, that feels like the entire message of the album itself.

By the time World’s Getting Smaller closes the record, it becomes clear that Experiencing Feelings of Joy is less about reaching happiness, and more about rediscovering the ability to feel things again after emotionally losing yourself for a period of time.

This might end up being one of the strongest albums released in 2026, and certainly one of the most emotionally honest records in The Jungle Giants’ catalogue. At some point, we’d love to sit down with Sam Hales for a deeper conversation around this project, because this album genuinely feels like it still has layers left to unpack beneath the surface.

Every Friday, Sound Under curates the best of Australian alternative music: fresh releases, overlooked gems, rising artists, and songs worth spending real time with.

Whether you’re driving down the coast, walking through the city late at night, or simply tired of playlists chosen by algorithms, these picks are built differently. This isn’t about hype cycles or whatever is trending for 48 hours. It’s about music with replay value, personality, and something real inside it.

No artist is too early. No sound is too left-field, and no scene is too small.

Here’s this week’s Picks:

Reruns — The Colliflowers

The Colliflowers have been sitting on our playlist for a while now, and one thing becomes obvious very quickly when you spend time with their music: they understand how to make genuinely fun, catchy pop-rock without sounding manufactured. There is an ease to their songwriting that makes the songs feel special.

Across their growing catalogue, there are plenty of tracks that hit that sweet spot, but for us, none land quite like “Reruns.”

This feels like the moment where everything fully clicks into place.

From the opening moments, the song carries a sense of movement that never lets up. The guitars are massive, the rhythm section keeps everything bouncing forward, and the vocal performance feels larger than life in the exact way a song like this needs. There is no formula for predicting what becomes a breakout track, but “Reruns” genuinely feels like it could become the band’s biggest song yet.

A huge reason for that is the guitar work. Nelson’s riff throughout the track is ridiculously addictive — the kind of riff that instantly locks itself into your brain after one listen. It gives the song its pulse, but also its personality.

Then comes the hook.

“ Oh my god / I’m barely getting started she’s rolling thunder ”

It is the kind of chorus built for movement. Windows down, summer drives, packed rooms shouting it back at the stage — the whole song feels designed for those moments. Even lyrically, there is something nostalgic and cinematic running underneath it all.

If you are looking for a song to inject some energy into your week, start here.

First Day Of The Rest Of My Life — Damon Mudge

A friend recently recommended Damon Mudge to us, and within one listen it became obvious why his music connects so quickly.

The Naarm-based piano rocker has a songwriting style that feels timeless without sounding dated. There is a warmth, theatricality, and melodic instinct to his music that instantly brings to mind artists like Elton John, but filtered through a modern Australian lens.

The track we have picked here, “First Day Of The Rest Of My Life,” comes from his debut album Country Living City Benefits — a project that deserves to be heard front to back. While the whole record carries strong songwriting throughout, this was the song we kept returning to the most.

A huge reason for that is the hook. It lands almost immediately and somehow manages to stay with you before the song has even finished. The groove is smooth, energetic, and full of movement, while the piano work gives the track its emotional core.

Then there are the drums.

As the song progresses, especially during the second half, the percussion begins opening the track up in a way that makes everything feel more alive. It is the kind of arrangement that feels built for a live room, where every section can breathe and expand naturally.

More than anything, this song feels joyful. There is a sense of momentum running through it that makes you want to move with it rather than simply listen from a distance.

Damon Mudge feels like one of those artists whose music is going to hit even harder live, and after hearing this record, we are already looking forward to seeing these songs in that setting.

If this track connects with you, spend time with the full album. There is a lot to discover inside it.

Heatin Park — DMA’S

At this point, DMA’S barely need an introduction. Over the last decade, the Sydney trio have become one of Australia’s biggest alternative exports, building a sound that sits somewhere between Britpop nostalgia, indie rock emotion, and massive stadium-ready songwriting.

What has always made DMA’S interesting is that even at their biggest, there is still something emotionally raw underneath the scale of the music. Their songs often feel huge, but never empty.

“Heatin Park” continues that perfectly.

The track has already been getting a lot of love online, and it is easy to understand why. Fans have been calling it one of the band’s strongest recent singles, especially because it feels like a return to the emotional urgency and melodic immediacy that made so many people connect with DMA’S in the first place.

From the opening moments, “Heatin Park” carries this restless emotional pull. The guitars feel expansive, the rhythm keeps everything moving forward, and Tommy O’Dell’s vocal sits right in the centre of the song with that familiar combination of vulnerability and force that DMA’S have built their career on.

But what really makes “Heatin Park” land is the feeling underneath it all. There is tension in the songwriting, but also warmth. The chorus feels built for live shows — one of those DMA’S moments where thousands of people could easily end up screaming the same lines back together.

Magic Man — The Gnomes

You do not come across many modern bands that genuinely transport you back to the spirit of the 60s in a believable way, but that is exactly what The Gnomes manage to do. And not just musically either. The whole world around the band — the visuals, the costumes, the performances, the attitude, feels fully committed to the era they are pulling from.

That is what separates them from simple nostalgia acts.

Yes, there are plenty of bands today inspired by 60s rock and roll, but most stop at the sound. The Gnomes go further than that. They understand the theatricality, charm, looseness, and personality that made bands from that era feel larger than life in the first place.

And “Magic Man” captures that perfectly.

The Frankston-based band channel elements of groups like The Kinks and The Beach Boys, though probably leaning more toward the storytelling eccentricity and garage-rock energy of The Kinks than the lush harmonies of The Beach Boys. There is a playful weirdness running through the song that feels very 60s British Invasion, especially in the way the lyrics sketch out this strange, slippery character drifting through life without consequence.

Musically, everything here just works. The guitars have that warm vintage bounce, the rhythm section keeps things moving effortlessly, and the whole track carries the kind of analog charm that makes you want to throw it on while driving with the windows down.

But what we love most about The Gnomes is that they still believe in the idea of the “band” properly. In an era obsessed with singles, trends, and quick moments, they feel interested in building worlds and bodies of work instead. There is a reason the golden era of rock and roll produced so many timeless records, and part of that came from artists thinking beyond one song at a time.

If you are someone who still loves proper rock and roll, there is a very good chance this band is going to connect with you instantly.

For the First Time — Le Shiv

Le Shiv still feel massively underrated for how complete they already are as a band. Sonically, visually, and aesthetically, everything about them feels intentional. They understand atmosphere, they understand image, and more importantly, they understand how to take older influences and reshape them into something that still feels fresh within today’s alternative music landscape.

“For the First Time” feels dark, cinematic, and emotionally explosive without becoming overly dramatic.

Lyrically, the song revolves around emotional manipulation, toxicity, and finally reaching a breaking point where clarity begins to cut through the chaos.

“Everything you talk / Seems to make me feel afraid…”

There is anger throughout the track, but more than anger, there is liberation.

What makes the track hit harder is how naturally the band build that emotional release into the music itself. The instrumentation keeps expanding as the song progresses.

Le Shiv are one of those bands that feel like they should already be much bigger than they are. The songwriting is there, the visual identity is there, and the sound already feels fully realised.

And if they continue refining this lane, it probably will not stay underground forever.

Every Friday, Sound Under spotlights the best alternative music beneath the surface.

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There aren’t that many bands sounding truly unique and interesting right now, especially in a scene where a lot of bands are starting to blur into each other. But nightlight are taking influences like many others and turning them into something that genuinely feels like their own.

Even when the Melbourne band first started as a duo, there was already a very clear identity forming around the project. Not just sonically, but visually and emotionally too.

Their music always carried this mix of chaos, confidence, drama and pop sensibility that made them stand out from a lot of alternative bands trying to occupy similar spaces.

But with PARALLEL//LINES VOL. 1, it feels like that vision has become much clearer.

Since becoming a trio in 2024, the band feel far more settled into who they are. The songs feel bigger, the transitions feel more intentional, and there’s a confidence running through the EP that makes it feel less like experimentation and more like nightlight fully understanding their strengths.

The band describe themselves as “pop music for alternative people,” and honestly, that probably explains their sound and the EP better than any genre label could.

Across these four tracks, nightlight move through heavy guitars, electronic textures, breakdowns, huge choruses and hyperactive production choices. Even though there’s a lot happening, everything still feels connected to the same emotional world.

And the world they are building here feels loud, dramatic, messy and a little dangerous in the best possible way.

This is the kind of EP that will make you dance, scream, mosh, and probably break something at the same time. And although nightlight’s sound has always been interesting and unique, it genuinely feels like the release of their EP what if i’m the devil? and the addition of Jordan on drums helped push the band into another gear creatively.

Performance, Control & Emotional Chaos

One of the most interesting things about the EP is how much it revolves around performance and control.

A lot of the lyrics across the project play with exaggerated personalities, manipulation, ego and obsession. The people inside these songs are constantly pulling others closer while also creating distance at the same time. There’s attraction, tension, confidence, insecurity and emotional games all happening together.

That’s what makes the EP work so well. nightlight understand how theatrical this world is, and instead of hiding that, they lean into it completely.

There are moments across the project that almost feel larger than life, but the band always keep enough self-awareness in the writing that it never becomes exhausting.

Even the way the songs move feels connected to that energy.

The hooks often feel seductive before suddenly becoming aggressive. Certain moments feel playful one second and chaotic the next. There’s this constant push and pull throughout the EP that keeps everything moving in an interesting and engaging way.

The music feels heavy enough for hardcore and alternative crowds, but still melodic and accessible enough for almost anyone to get pulled into it after a few listens.

That balance is difficult to get right, especially for bands mixing this many influences together, but nightlight make it feel surprisingly natural.

The Sound of the EP

The opening track VOL. 1 does a really good job introducing the EP’s world before things fully open up. It feels less like a standalone song and more like the beginning of a longer experience.

By the time the second half of the track expands and transitions into DRAMA//DRAMA, the tone of the project already feels fully established.

From there, the EP keeps building momentum.

What stands out most throughout the project is how controlled the chaos feels. There’s a lot happening sonically across these songs, but the band never lose sight of structure or melody. The drums add a huge sense of movement throughout the EP, especially during the heavier moments, while the hooks still remain central to almost every track.

That’s probably what makes the project so replayable.

Underneath all the distortion, attitude and energy are songs that are genuinely catchy. Not catchy in a forced commercial way, but in the sense that certain hooks, melodies and moments naturally stay with you after the EP finishes.

The production also deserves credit for understanding when to let songs breathe. Even during the loudest sections, things rarely feel overcrowded. Every element feels like it exists to push the atmosphere of the EP further rather than simply making things heavier for the sake of it.

And because of that, the whole project feels immersive rather than overwhelming.

Final Thoughts

What makes PARALLEL//LINES VOL. 1 exciting is not just that nightlight are making good songs. It’s that the band already feel like they have a strong understanding of the kind of world they want to create around their music.

The EP feels dramatic, chaotic, confident and emotionally messy, but all of those things feel intentional and packaged in a way that people across different genres and age groups can still connect with after the first listen.

And if this is only the beginning of the PARALLEL//LINES series, it feels like nightlight still have a lot more to show.

Australia’s music story is often reduced to a shortlist of exports: AC/DC, Kylie Minogue, INXS, Tame Impala, Sia. Big names, real achievements, global reach, but they only tell part of the story.

The fuller picture is messier, richer and far more revealing. It begins long before federation, before charts and record labels, in the living musical traditions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It moves through bush ballads, dance halls, migrant influence, sweaty pub stages, pirate radio energy, suburban garages, community scenes and internet-born artists creating far from the traditional centres of culture.

Australia did not inherit one sound, it built one from influences from all over.

Because of geography, Australian artists have long worked with a strange tension: close enough to absorb global influence, far enough to reshape it. Styles often arrived from Britain, America or elsewhere, but rarely stayed unchanged.

Rock got rougher, pop leaned brighter (or just weirder), punk felt more unhinged, electronic music opened up and became more expansive, and hip-hop turned into a way of talking about migration, class and what modern Australia actually looks like.

Again and again, Australian music has turned distance into character.

Before the Nation: The First Music of the Land

Any serious history of Australian music must begin with the one of the oldest continuing cultures on Earth.

For tens of thousands of years, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have sustained musical traditions tied to ceremony, language, kinship, memory and Country. Music was a way of carrying knowledge, law, ancestry and relationship through generations.

Songlines connected land, navigation and story, while voice, rhythm and dance carried deep communal meaning. Instruments varied across regions — from clapsticks and drums in some Torres Strait Islander traditions to the yidaki, often called the didgeridoo in English, especially associated with Arnhem Land.

This isn’t a prelude to Australian music history, it’s the foundation of it.

Modern Australian music continues to be shaped by First Nations artists bringing language, truth-telling, humour, resistance and continuity into contemporary forms.

Bush Ballads, Folk Songs and a Colonial Identity

After British colonisation began in 1788, imported Irish, Scottish and English folk traditions met convict hardship, frontier violence, labour culture and the realities of distance.

Songs travelled through camps, settlements, shearing sheds and goldfields. Over time, bush ballads emerged as one of the first recognisably local popular forms: songs about workers, wanderers, injustice, drought, survival and irreverence toward authority.

No song became more symbolic than “Waltzing Matilda,” first published in the 1890s. It was not an official anthem, but it functioned like one for many people: proof that music could help imagine a national identity before the nation fully existed.

Australian music was already doing something it would keep doing for generations: mythologising itself while laughing at itself.

Cities, Dance Halls and the Radio Age

By the early twentieth century, Australia’s urban centres were increasingly plugged into international entertainment culture. Jazz, vaudeville, theatre orchestras and dance halls flourished in Sydney, Melbourne and beyond.

Broadcast music created shared listening across enormous distances. What happened in one city could now be heard nationally. It helped turn performers into household names and helped audiences develop a common cultural reference point.

American jazz and swing had major influence, but local scenes mattered too. Australia was no longer only consuming music, it was building an industry around it.

Rock ’n’ Roll and the Birth of Youth Culture

The arrival of rock ’n’ roll in the 1950s changed Australian culture in the same way it did elsewhere: teenagers suddenly had music that felt like theirs.

Johnny O’Keefe became one of the country’s first major rock stars, helping localise a genre born overseas. Television, introduced in 1956, accelerated the shift. Music was now visual as well as sonic.

By the 1960s, surf groups, beat bands and pop acts were thriving. Australia still looked heavily to Britain and America, but something important had changed: the infrastructure for a homegrown modern music culture now existed.

The Pub Rock Era: Australia Finds Its Volume

If one movement most clearly shaped modern Australian music identity, it was pub rock.

From the 1970s into the 1980s, an extensive circuit of hotels, pubs and clubs became one of the toughest live proving grounds in the world. Bands had to win audiences in real time.

You either had songs, stamina and presence, or you didn’t.

This environment helped produce acts such as:

• AC/DC

• Cold Chisel

• Midnight Oil

• The Angels

• Rose Tattoo

• Australian Crawl

• early INXS

Pub rock was physical music built for crowded rooms. Working and middle-class spaces turned live music into ritual: a release after work, a social language, a place where national temperament could be heard at full volume.

Australia did not just imitate rock music, it toughened it.

Punk, Post-Punk and the Outsiders

Not every artist belonged in the pub rock mould.

Brisbane’s The Saints were among the earliest great punk bands anywhere, releasing “(I’m) Stranded” in 1976. Their urgency arrived almost simultaneously with first-wave punk in the UK and US, a reminder that Australia was not always culturally behind.

Then came stranger forms.

Nick Cave and The Birthday Party turned chaos into theatre. Underground scenes in Melbourne and Sydney embraced noise, goth, experimental rock and outsider identity. These artists often benefited from distance. Removed from global trend centres, they could become harsher, weirder and less obedient.

That outsider streak would become one of Australia’s most valuable musical traits till date.

Country Music and Regional Australia

While urban scenes often dominate cultural narratives, country music has been one of Australia’s most enduring and commercially significant traditions.

Artists such as Slim Dusty helped define a distinctly Australian country voice rooted in roads, labour, humour and regional life. Later figures like John Williamson and Kasey Chambers carried the form into new eras.

This mattered because Australia has never only been a city story. Regional identity, rural mythology and life beyond metropolitan centres have always shaped national culture. Country music kept that perspective audible.

Pop Exports and International Success

By the late 1980s and 1990s, Australian artists were no longer just domestic stars or touring bands. They were global figures.

INXS became one of the era’s biggest bands. Kylie Minogue became an international pop institution. Savage Garden topped charts worldwide. Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn” became one of the defining pop songs of its moment. The Bee Gees, though born in the UK, developed significantly in Australia before global fame.

Australia had entered the export era.

The significance was psychological as much as commercial. Australian artists no longer needed to leave identity behind to compete internationally.

Triple J and a National Taste Culture

Few institutions shaped contemporary Australian music more than triple j.

Originally launched in Sydney in 1975 before later expanding nationally, the youth broadcaster became a discovery engine, gatekeeper, community hub and launchpad for local talent. For many Australians, triple j was not just radio, it was a map.

Its annual Hottest 100 became a national ritual. Its support helped build careers across genres.

Through the 1990s and 2000s, artists such as:

• Silverchair

• Powderfinger

• Grinspoon

• Missy Higgins

• The Living End

• Hilltop Hoods

• Jet

• Wolfmother

all benefited from a culture where local music still had shared national pathways.

Streaming later fragmented this monoculture, but for decades triple j gave Australia something rare: a common soundtrack.

Women Who Reshaped the Story

No honest history of Australian music can treat women as side notes.

From Helen Reddy’s global impact in the 1970s to Kylie’s pop longevity, Tina Arena’s vocal legacy, Missy Higgins’ songwriting voice, Courtney Barnett’s indie sharpness, Sia’s global songwriting dominance, Amy Shark’s commercial rise, and countless others, women have repeatedly expanded what Australian music could be.

They have often done so while navigating industries slower to recognise them.

Today, many of the country’s most exciting scenes right now are being shaped by women and non-binary artists across indie, electronic, punk, R&B and pop.

Tame Impala and the New Global Cool

Kevin Parker’s Tame Impala marked another shift.

Emerging from Perth, far from eastern media centres, the project fused psychedelic rock with obsessive studio craft and pop instinct. What began as a celebrated psych act became one of the most influential modern bands anywhere.

The symbolism mattered more than people realise, it showed how an artist working from geographic distance can now shape global sound directly.

And, honestly that had always been Australia’s hidden advantage.

Hip-Hop, Migration and the New Australia

Australian hip-hop began as a niche movement but has become one of the clearest mirrors of contemporary national identity.

Early commercial breakthroughs included Hilltop Hoods and Bliss n Eso. Later generations widened the frame dramatically.

Artists from migrant communities, suburban scenes and First Nations backgrounds used rap to speak about race, policing, class, belonging, masculinity and ambition.

Acts such as A.B. Original, Briggs, Barkaa, OneFour, Genesis Owusu and many others helped move Australian hip-hop beyond imitation into something culturally specific and urgent.

First Nations Renaissance

Contemporary Australian music is increasingly unimaginable without First Nations leadership.

Archie Roach’s truth-telling, Gurrumul’s spiritual presence, Yothu Yindi’s historic crossover success, Baker Boy’s language-forward joy, Thelma Plum’s songwriting, King Stingray’s Yolŋu surf-rock energy and many more have reshaped the national soundscape.

Some of the most future-facing Australian music is also deeply connected to the oldest traditions.

That is what is really exciting about whats happening in the current scene.

What Australian Music Sounds Like Now

Today, Australian music is less unified and more alive than ever.

Streaming ended the old monoculture. Scenes now coexist rather than dominate.

• Melbourne continues to thrive as a live music city with punk, indie, jazz and underground energy.

• Sydney produces rap, pop and hybrid scenes shaped by migration and density.

• Perth maintains a reputation for left-field innovation.

• Brisbane and Adelaide sustain strong independent communities.

• Regional artists can now build audiences online without relocating first.

Genre boundaries matter less than they once did. A rapper may make punk songs, a country artist may use electronic production, or a rock band may think like bedroom producers.

The old question was: What does Australian music sound like?

The better question now is: How many Australian sounds can exist at once?

Moments That Defined the Sound

Throughout its history, Australian music hasn’t just evolved through genres — it has been shaped by moments. Breakthrough performances, political songs, global successes and underground movements that shifted perception. These moments remind us that the story of Australian music isn’t just gradual — it’s punctuated by impact.

AC/DC Breaks Through Globally (Late 1970s)
From Sydney pubs to global arenas, proving Australian rock could travel.

The Saints Release (I’m) Stranded (1976)
A foundational punk moment.

Yothu Yindi – Treaty (1991)
A defining political song in Australian music.

The Triple J Hottest 100 Era (1990s–2000s)
A cultural institution shaping national taste.

Flume Wins a Grammy (2017)
Australian electronic music reaching global dominance.

Australia never had one musical identity. It had many, often arguing with each other.

Its greatest artists have emerged from contradiction: isolation and ambition, roughness and craft, humour and melancholy, local scenes and global dreams.

That may be why Australian music continues to resonate.

It was never built from certainty. It was built by people far from the centre, trying to make something real — and discovering that the distance itself could become a strength.