The official home of Australian Independent Music, a place for music industry professionals alike, featuring the cream of the crop of Australia’s diverse and thriving independent music sector.

Hermitude's infectiously upbeat single "Speak Of The Devil' came out in September of 2011 and we only just discovered it (considering it won Triple J's Award for best film clip last year there's no excuse). Damn. What a freaking amazing song!

Speak Of The Devil's righteous departure from instrumental hip hop (in which Hermitude made their name) into glorious pop/dance territory is just one of the highlights off their soon-to-be-released album HyperParadise. Featuring a glorious mix of synth pop, electronica, dance, hip hop and soul, it shows just how creative, talented and tasteful these dudes are.

Sometimes with instrumental or sample based music there's a danger that in avoiding repetition, the music becomes a victim of its own hyperactivity, too many samples, glitches and zig zigs at the expense of any overiding structure. Hermitude have never had that problem, each track stands alone as a memorable track.

From the filthy synth and snare of opening track "Engage" through to the sleepy pitter patter subtlety of "Let You Go", a track that wouldn't be out of place on Seekae's Jagermeister Independent Music Award winning +Dome album, Hermitude have come up with their best release yet. An exciting, engaging, enchanting listen. Killer stuff.

A rad track to start the year on the ausindies blog.

N'Fa Jones, formerly of groundbreaking hip hop act 1200 Techniques and now residing in London, dropped the rather excellent new track Wayooy about a month ago. While 1200 Techniques haven't been active for years, N'Fa's collaborations with Australian hip hop royalty have never kept him too far away from the lime-light. Over the years he's worked with The Black Eyed Peas (long before they turned into this band), Roots Manuva and even Heath Ledger. Just last year he also featured on award winning albums by Drapht and 360... the man has been busy.

Wayooy is a groovy and deep, mid tempo, M-Phazes produced track complete with african marimba loops, horns and joyous shouting by what sounds like dozens of people... "WAYOOOY, WAYOOOOOOY, WAYO YO YO"...  There's a verse or two by the mighty Roots Manuva while N'Fa's uniqe voice and rhyme show he's at the top of his game.

N'fa Jones - Wayooy ft Roots Manuva (prod. by M-Phazes)

Wayooy will feature on his new EP Babylondon. You can download the track for free here - http://www.nfajones.com/ The EP will be out in May, an Australian Hip Hop 'veteran' continuing on his always intriguing, always challenging musical odyssey.

A talented MC with a killer singing voice is something special... That's why Jeremy Koren (aka Jeremedy aka Grey Ghost) is worth getting excited about, he's a dude who can rhyme with the best of them (Rapper tag #40 for proof) but damn can he let rip on a booming chorus.

Grey Ghost has a unique sense of style and design, he's also charming, charismatic,  eloquent, passionate, handsome and bearded, we reckon he's an A&R mans wet dream... or at least he should be. Space Ambassador is the lead single of the debut Grey Ghost EP which was put together with the help of an all-star production cast that includes producers Jan Skubiszewski and Matik and mixers Forrester Savell and Scott Horscroft.

As former lead singer/MC in Melbourne live Hip Hop/Pop/Synth experimentalists The Melodics, Jeremedy always had incredible command of his audience, so while his brand of recorded "post hip hop" is polished and worthy of a dance-floor near you, you should expect a rocking live show too...

When a press release concludes with the words "make no mistake, this is an important Australian Record" it's tempting to write it off as hyperbole... By whose standard is it important? Are we really breaking new ground?

Well, yes, in this case we really are breaking new ground.

The Last Kinection's album 'Next Of Kin' is stunning in its musicality and fiece in its intentions. 'Next Of Kin' fizzes with the unique world view of a politically savvy generation of proud indigenous artists. The album features party bangers (check out the totally rad 'Happy People' featuring Lotek) and stunning political R&B. Lead single 'Are We There Yet' should be adopted as the anthem for the Close The Gap Campaign. It's a song that also captures the zeitgeist of the #Occupy movement beautifully... The Last Kinection really do represent the exploited 99%.

Next Of Kin was created in the aftermath of a horrific car accident in 2008 - where MC Nay (Naomi) was pronounced dead at the scene until her brother Weno (Joel Wennitong) noticed that the blanket covering her was moving. From staring down the barrel of never walking or talking again to leading her fellow band members to win 5 Deadly Awards and release  a truly stunning album, the story of The Last Kinection's is already one of triumph over adversity. A beautiful (and yes, important) album full of amazing songs, one after the other...

Based on recent form, we were expecting Phrase's new album 'Babylon' to be a really good hip hop album. We were wrong, it ain't a good hip hop album...

...instead it's a genuinely amazing soul, funk, old skool R&B and rock album. Its got huge choruses and beautiful live production. It's sensitive and bold, layered with gorgeous guitar sounds, rich drums, great vocals and not an MPC, turntable or sample to be heard. Sure, Phrase is still rhyming but musically, it's a million miles from what we were expecting and after a few listens we reckon it could be album of the year... #justsayin.

Babylon hasn't had the coverage it deserves. Perhaps it was overshadowed by mammoth Australian releases from the likes of 360, Kimbra and Gotye. Perhaps awards season stole all the music press  but we're genuinely hoping that this album's a slow burner. It deserves a huge audience and we hope it finds one.

You should stream the entire album here!


It's high time we (us at AIR) stopped being surprised by how great Australian hip hop albums are. 360's 'Falling or Flying' blew us away, The Herd's 'Future Shade' must be near the height of their powers, Drapht was the most nominated artist at The ARIA's, Illy's breakthrough single is about to go gold and Phrase just knocked us out...

Below is an unedited blog entry that 360 wrote for the this website. He's a master of pop hooks, arguably one of Australia's most exciting MC's and one of the crudest, funniest, most politically incorrect artist we follow on twitter.

You should know that he writes words lik c**t and f**k in it. If you're offended by that then you shouldn't read on...

 

SOCIAL MEDIA 101
by 360

 

To give you a bit of background, ever since i was 14 i've been a bit of an internet fiend.. i used to go on rap forums and post my lyrics for people to criticise etc.. in school holidays i wouldn't chill with my mates and party, i'd just go on these websites and write raps and battle people, i lived for it..   i cut down on my internet usage from the age of 16 - 18.. but then came myspace, and my addiction had officially arrived.. back then i wasn't using it for music networking or anything like that, it was strictly to find hot girls who lived in australia.. i used it so much to the point i'd be at a friends house and everyone would be having a good time and then i'd wonder off to go use myspace and look up babes.. it was pretty pathetic. Over time, Facebook came along causing myspace to die in the arse and twitter had made its arrival into the internet world.

The internet has completely flipped the whole music industry on its head, we all know that. A lot will say its killing the industry and its sad to watch, which i understand. Apart from live music it is totally dominating. In a way the pathetic addiction i had as a young'n has come to serve me greatly today. Some artists are capitalising on the social media avenue, some aren't, i'm one that is.

My 360 fanpage has grown to over 50,000 fans now, and im followed by more than 4,000 people on twitter. I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that i don't strictly use my Facebook to promote my music.. i use it like its my personal page. i post random status updates, stupid pictures, links to funny video's on youtube, everything. THERE IS NOTHING MORE ANNOYING THAN SPAM! i see so many young artists trying to capitalise on the whole social media thing, and they really struggle. They put in so much time and effort in posting on everyones wall, sending links to shows, music whatever.. unless you have a big profile, spamming NEVER works. I see a lot of kids going so hard on the social media front when they really should be using that time to make their music good.. Having good quality music in the long run is better promotion than any social media skills someone can have.. not to be a hater but i see too many kids promoting the fuck out of their music when their music is trash. A lot of kids understand that social media is so important these days, which is good, but having social media presence and forcing your music down peoples throats wont gain you fans. in the long run it is all about the music.

If you follow me on twitter or are a fan of my Facebook page, you will know i post A LOT. you will also know that i post a lot of politically incorrect, obnoxious, stupid and random shit.. im just being myself. I was asked a while ago by management if i could 'tone it down' a little, cut out using the word 'cunt' etc. I was even asked to start another account under an alias and let management take over my twitter account to strictly post music updates.. fuck that. The whole reason i have so many fans is because i say whatever i want to say. I personally LOVE seeing artists post hilarious, rude and sometimes politically incorrect shit on twitter..  it makes me like them more as a person rather than an artist. Of course it has its pro's and cons.. i have no doubt in my mind i have lost heaps of fans due to me being so outspoken/crass on twitter and Facebook, im cool with that though. with 3 fans lost there are 30 gained. i truly believe me just being myself, no holds barred is what has gained me such loyal following on Facebook. That and constantly delivering music which i believe is quality.

Some people have said that im like a "social media guru" but i don't really see it like that.. everything that has happened is all natural.. my idea to start 'Rapper tag' wasn't  a calculated move. Starting this 'Shoosh cunt' (shooshcunt.tumblr.com) trend wasn't a calculated move.. things just seem to catch on.. i have an idea and i run with it, thats it. the important thing is to just be yourself and hope people buy into you as a person as well as an artist, because thats what will gain you a loyal following.

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If you haven't seen rappertag.. check it now. Amazing. What other genre would you see such incredible comeraderie?

Check "Just Got Started" and "Thow it Away" featuring Josh Pyke here.

360 on Twitter
360 on Facebook
360 on the interwebs

An innovative producer, an independent label entrepreneur, a soul futurist and a hip hop traditionalist, Ashley Anderson (aka Katalyst) has been at the forefront of Australian hip hop since the mid-90's. Everytime I listen to a new album I kinda feel like he's educating me about the genre... kinda like, "this is what hip hop was, is and could be in years to come".

The ARIA Award winning, DMA Award winning, J Award, AIR Award nominated producer is about to add to his considerable curriculum vitae and fans of hip hop music worldwide are going to be better off for it.

While Katalyst spent much of the last couple of years focusing on his critically acclaimed soul collaboration Space Invadas (with Steve Spacek, do yaself a favour and listen) he's also been focusing on his upcoming solo album, a follow up from the frankly awesome 2008 "What's Happening?" album (again, do yaself a favour).

So, here we present Ready To Drop featuring KweenG (KillaQueenz), a track which Katalyst tells us is a nod to the 1980's New York Scene. I've been listening to it on repeat and its a sure sign of great things to come on the upcoming album.

We ain't covered very much Hip Hop on these here pages... so here we go.

Illy surprised us last year when his album "The Chase" debuted at number one on the Jagermeister Independent Charts.  But we shouldn't have been surprised at all. On the strength of lead track "Happiness" (featuring Owl Eyes), he'd been all over our airwaves for a few months.  When the full album of hooks and melodies dropped, the music buying public (or what remains of it) lapped it up. "The Chase" was full of sweet collaborations with hip, beautiful young singers, Illy's own rhymes were a pleasure to listen to, the songs were radio friendly and the ear-worms were everywhere... check out Ciggarettes and Diamonds (featuring Wren), case and point. Great stuff.

When someone writes a history of Australian hip hop 20 years from now, I think the benefit of hindsight might group Illy, Pez, 360 and their contemporaries as a kind of "second school". They're all MC's that grew up listening to the music of the ground-breakers, The Herd, Downsyde, 1200 Techniques, Pegz, Bliss N Eso, TZU and Hilltop Hoods.

There's no doubting that this "Second School" is influenced stylistically by aforementoned pioneers but they've also gleefully added pop smarts, synths, interesting musical references and melodies to the mix. They're taking Australian hip hop to newer, fruitier, more interesting places. This stuff has the potential for wider appeal...

Thats not to say that the artists that i've mentioned above have had their day, not by a long shot, but it feels to me like Illy and his fellow Generation Y MC's are the artists that will take Australian Hip Hop to new and exciting places for many years to come.

We've embedded Illy's latest clip above. Unmistakeably Melbourne, full of all the all the qualities we've mentioned.