Aus Music Month ~ Here’s Some Fab Local Music

It’s Aus Music Month!!  What better time to find some awesome new local music!!??

Our very own The Dotted Line team is here with a list of local Australian music you should be listening to right now, that showcases some of the winners of the 2024 Music Victoria Awards.

RVG – “Nothing Really Changes”

Naarm/Melbournian post-punk band RVG won ‘Best Group’ at the 2024 Music Victoria Awards, on the back of the release of their third album Brain Worms.  Of this release lyricist/frontwoman Romy Vager says:

“Hype is scary. After two years of Covid it felt like the hype had gone down so we were able to just do stuff,” says Vager. “This time around we were like, this is what we’re doing, we’re taking control, we’re taking risks, and we’re going to make an album that sounds big so that when we hear it on the radio we want to hear it again.”

‘Nothing Really Changes’ is the first single on Brain Worms and is a pulsing, thrilling listen, detailing the pains of a fresh break-up, and the physical attachment that lingers. The song is brought to life by Vager’s striking performance in the video, directed by Hayden Somerville & filmed at Ripponlea Estate in Melbourne. Somerville describes the scene as, “A giant empty estate, haunted by a past decision. The words and music painted this haunted manor world in my head. A lifeless body represents a past relationship so nicely, while also acting as a fantastic listener for Romy. I think it’s all very therapeutic.”

Gregor – “Angels”

Gregor is Naarm/Melbourne pop eccentric Gregor Kompar and he won ‘Best Album’ for his work Satanic Lullabies at the 2024 Music Victoria Awards.  Gregor makes inquisitive home recordings recalling Talking Heads, Arthur Russell or Durutti Column, then plays them live with a line up ranging from solo to a ten-piece band.

Satanic Lullabies is a modern epic, a bedroom odyssey, like if pre-MAGA Kanye made a Disney soundtrack. The album has polar extremes of wide-eyed innocence and deep despair. There are moments of great musical beauty that segue into harsh, bleak soundscapes. “I’m seeking to draw attention to the similarities between heaven and hell,” says Gregor, “and to comfort anyone who recognises these.”

‘Angels’ is the second single from Satanic Lullabies.

Audrey Powne – “Feed The Fire”

UK-based Naarm/Melbourne artist, producer and multi-instrumentalist Audrey Powne is a creative force carving out a distinctive path in the future jazz and soul world and she picked up Best Solo Artist at the 2024 Music Victoria Awards.

Described as “The Very Brilliant Audrey Powne,” by legendary BBC Radio 6 presenter and tastemaker Gilles Peterson, Powne is known equally for her extraordinary technical skills and creative inventiveness, and for being unafraid of pushing the boundaries while simultaneously keeping musical traditions alive.

‘Feed The Fire’ is the first single from Powne’s much anticipated debut LP From The Fire and is a critique of systems at play.  Drawing from experiences in her own life and watching the world around her, From The Fire is one complete body of work; cover to cover telling her story of recovery and persistence, but most importantly survival.

Good Morning – “Excalibur”

Naarm/Melbourne’s Good Morning are beloved at home and abroad and picked up Best Track for ‘Excalibur’, from their latest release Good Morning Seven at the 2024 Music Victoria Awards.  Stefan Blair and Liam Parsons are the band’s founding members, and are joined live by James Macleod and Joe Alexander.

While Good Morning Seven is a testament to the investment (and pay-off) in taking time, narratively the album considers the very real fear of it being wasted against the means we seek to enrich it.  The album is one of navigating choice, from taking plunges in to realising aspirations and how our needs and desires change.

‘Excalibur’ is a chill lo-fi offering that speaks to lingering contemplation and the DIY phone camera video is intimate and refreshing.

Saint Ergo – “Falling So Hard”

Naarm/Melbourne based Saint Ergo is a cinematic, modern-contemporary music experience with soundscapes that will shake your hips and break your soul. Joanna is the force behind the project that forges a unique fusion of R&B and baroque pop. You can feel the lived experience that we share as human beings within every song.  Saint Ergo won the Arts Access Victoria Amplify Award at the 2024 Music Victoria Awards.

‘Falling So Hard’ is a song that wanders cheekily into the question of “what if?” What if I actually pursued these relationships in spite of the taboo? Folks are often isolated and starved of affection, romance and erotic satisfaction when there is no opportunity to express themselves sexually and this is very evident in the disability community.

There are many consensual relationship styles and configurations that society that declares as inappropriate, some rightly so, but allowing so-called conventional, compulsorily heterosexual (comp-het) relationships, that can still result in damage and abuse. What is rarely discussed is the real problem of power imbalances, consent frameworks, real relationship agreements and the personal responsibility for emotional growth that allows for healthy expression.