43 Aussies in ISC finalists list
Australian songwriters continue to make a name for themselves in the Nashville-based annual International Songwriting Competition.
68 acts from around the world will be chosen for various categories. This year there were 18,500 entries, organisers said.
In total 43 Australians make it to the finalists list – of which seven scored multi-nominations. These were Pluto Jonze, Rita Satch, Birds of Tokyo, Meg Mac, Falls, Flight Facilities, Shane Timmo,Tracy McNeil, The Oopsy Daisys, Hairy Soul Man, Roshani, Hailey Calvert,Jared Porter &Kaylee Bell,Matt Stillert, Jasmine Rae, Straalen, Seth Sentry, Dustin Tebbutt, Angela Thornton, Halfway, Loren Kate, Glades, Casey Barnes, Troy Cassar-Daley, Stone Parade and Bec Laughton & Sam De Jong of Brisbane’s Retta.
Birds of Tokyo’s Anchor, which is shortlisted for APRA song of the year, gets them into the Pop/Top 40 and Rock sections. Written as a wry comment on how the band consumes all their time to the detriment of personal relationships, the anthemic pop flavour of the recording is nothing like the heavy version they deliver onstage.
Sydney band Stone Parade are also in both those categories, respectively for It’s Only You And Me and Don’t Let Me Go.
Meg Mac scores with two, with Never Be for AAA (Adult Album Alternative) and Roll Up Your Sleeves being one of the four Aussie mentions in the Performance category.
Sydney’s Falls are represented with two tracks from their Omaha album: When We Were Young for AAA and That’s The Thing in Folk/ Singer Songwriter.
Flight Facilities’ team-up with Emma Louise, Two Bodies, the first single off their debut album Down To Earth, has them as contenders in the EDM section. The seven-minute Dave Ma-directed visual accompanying Clair De Lune following two thieving girls, makes it into Music Video.
Seth Sentry’s Hell Boy, with its impressive opening line “So the greatest trick that the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he really weren’t real, for real?” is a contender in R&B/Hip Hop and Unsigned.
Brisbane’s Bec Laughton & Sam De Jong follow their Queensland Music Awards win last year with Flood up for Performance and Worry About It for Unsigned.
The three names expanding the Australian presence in R&B/ Hip Hop are all from Melbourne: rapper Adam Briggs with Bad Apple, producer Tali Sing with his debut single Breathe and MC 10YRWAR (aka Matthew Charles) with If I Only Knew Better.
There are three Australians in the Americana category: John Busby of Brisbane band Halfway (Dulcify), Adelaide’s Loren Kate (Silver And Gold) and Melbourne’s Tracy McNeil (Wildcats).
The Blues also has three: NSW’s Roshani Priddis (Paid In Ink), Adelaide’s Matt Stillert (Four Diggers) and Brisbane’s Hailey Calvert (I Won’t Forget About You).
Not to be left out, Country has three local entries: Melbourne based Jasmine Rae (Everybody Wants To Take My Money), Troy Cassar-Daley & Paul Kelly (Tennessee Rain) and the Australasian partnership of Jared Porter and Kaylee Bell (Brisbane and New Zealand’s South Island) for Pieces.
Other entries are NSW’s Dustin Tebbutt with Silk (Folk/ Singer Songwriter), Sydney band Glades’ Falling Away (EDM), Sydney indie-popster Pluto Jonze with All Washed Up (Adult Contemporary), Byron Bay band Tropical Zombie’s Waterslides (Rock) and Queenslander Straalen’s Help (Teen).
Melbourne band The Oopsy Daisys’ Tim McAuliffe’s Body Noises makes an appearance in Children’s Music, Melbourne-based Kai Smythe (Hairy Soul Man)’s How Deep Can I Go? (Comedy/ Novelty), Sydney-based Angela Thornton’s The One (Lyrics Only) and Melburnian Shane Timmo’s Closed Door (Lyrics Only), Casey Barnes’ Valentine (Music Video, directed by Wazza Bray and Michelle Barnes), NSW’s John Krsulja’s Old Man’s Shed (Performance) and Rita Satch’s We Could Have All That (Performance).
Judges include Tom Waits, Avicci, Hardwell, Lorde, Bastille, Keb Mo, Robben Ford, Boyz II Men, American Authors, Kesha, Bill Withers, Moby and Pat Metheny.