Australian Music Is Bloody Great: Joan & The Giants

Where do you hear great new Australian music these days? Community radio is one crucial outlet and Amrap – the Australian Music Radio Airplay Project - offers Australian musicians a pathway to airplay from the hundreds of community stations to a weekly listenership of nearly 6,000,000 people. Go to amrap.org.au to get your music to thousands of presenters using the site each month to find new Australian music. If you haven’t got your music on Amrap, what are you waiting for? Community radio uses Amrap to source Australian music for airplay. You can discover all the great Australian music championed by community radio on the Community Radio Plus App, featuring the diverse range of community radio stations nationwide in one handy spot!

Amrap’s national radio show Australian Music Is Bloody Great features Australian artists presenting their favourite recent Australian music. Australian Music Is Bloody Great’s previous hosts range from Dune Rats to Sampa The Great to Phil Jameison.

We’re proud to team up with Amrap to bring you Australian Music Is Bloody Great as a Pilerats feature!
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This article originally appeared on amrap.org.au
Written by Ella Stewart

Coming out of Boorloo, (Perth) indie alt-pop darlings Joan & The Giants have spent the past year releasing a string of well-received singles with their latest effort, Born In The Wrong Time, continuing their streak of brightly shining songs we've come to know and love. This week for Australian Music Is Bloody Great, vocalist Gracie Newton-Wordsworth takes us through some current favourites found on AMRAP.

Eskimo Joe - The First Time

[Eskimo Joe] have been around for 27 years and are basically iconic now. They are also the best people: they took us on tour in 2023 and we had the most wonderful time with them around WA. There is a reason this track is number one on the AMRAP charts - it's soaked in nostalgia and warmth. I love the hook lyric: “don’t you want it to feel like the first time”. I mean don’t we all? It's such a relatable grounded lyric that brings up so many emotions and nostalgia.

King Ibis - Cooling Embers

[King Ibis] are one of my favourite bands right now. I’ve loved them for years and I am so happy to see them on the [AMRAP] charts. They supported Coldplay last year, they are doing so well and I’m so proud of them. They are incredible live so get down to see them, their sound is huge, Nadene’s voice is amazing, the hooks are phenomenally written and they just live rent free in your head. I think this song is so great and the meaning behind it, I really resonate with. It was originally written about the challenges of a long distance relationship and then a conversation happened with their guitarist Matt, and he asked if the song was about being disillusioned with pursuing a career as an artist, and since then Nadene has resonated with this.

King Stingray - Through The Trees

I have to stop for a second and have a fan girl moment, I love this band so much. I watched King Stingray in 2023 at Falls Festival in Freo (Fremantle) and fell in love with their live sets so much. They just made the whole audience feel like friends and we were just hanging out, living in the moment, having a hug and a laugh. It was just such a fun environment. I also loved that this Northern Territory band also incorporate their language into their songs, it’s just so beautiful to hear and experience. They call their sound ‘Yolŋu surf rock’ and the band perform songs with lyrics in English and Yolŋu Matha. This song is enchanting, they say this song is about overcoming adversity and coming out the other side and reaching that breath of fresh air. This one makes me feel so uplifted and I honestly think they are one of the best rock bands coming out of Australia and I can’t wait to see them take over the world.

Charm of Finches - Middle Of Your Mess

There's some really thought provoking lyrics in here. I also love that this act are Naarm (Melbourne) based sisters Mabel and Ivy Windred-Wornes. It’s just so beautiful to see sisters singing together. It's giving me First Aid Kit vibes. I also grew up singing with my sister and my mum and brother and I think it’s really special when families can sing together, it warms my heart. I love how this one opens with beautiful angelic voices and harmonies but it’s also addressing so deeper underlying issues. The sisters describe it as a tongue-in-cheek bop on when women sometimes like to blame other women for their own internal issues when it comes to relationships.

Joan & The Giants - Born In The Wrong Time

This is one of our own songs, we feel pretty stoked and lucky it’s been in the top ten on theAMRAP  Metro Charts the last couple weeks. We can’t thank radio shows enough for playing it. This one is just about me feeling like an old soul trapped in this body my entire life. I’ve never really felt like I fit in, I’ve always felt like a bit of a weirdo, a bit of an outsider. When I was writing this, I was really picturing how my life would be in the time of 1969 Woodstock. Like I would be there listening to Bob Dylan and the Joni Mitchells of the world, maybe feeling like I would be better in that sort of time. It’s also about really just wanting to throw my phone away and never look at it again which I know I can’t do because of the modern world.