Underground Champion Platform NTS Launching In Australia & New Zealand

NTS, the global platform and online radio station that champions underground music, is launching in Australia and New Zealand.

Over half the music played on NTS isn’t available on Spotify or Apple Music – and includes ANZ left-of-centre content.

With permanent studios in London, Los Angeles, and Manchester, it broadcasts from over sixty cities every month via 600 resident musicians, producers and DJs to 3 million monthly listeners.

It is free of charge and without on-air advertising, and broadcasters are given total freedom.

NTS marks its entry into the ANZ markets with a Sunday March 19 show at Melbourne’s  Northcote Theatre.

The international bill is designed to showcase the wide genres it represents.

Tokyo electronic artist Soichi Terada is renowned for 90s deep house club tracks and soundtracks for video games as Ape Escape.

Soichi Terada

Sister Nancy, Jamaican female trailblazer of dancehall, made her debut with the 1982 smash hit “Bam Bam” which has been sampled and referenced in tracks by Lauryn Hill, Wiz Khalifa, Too Short, Kanye Ye West and Jay-Z.

Sister Nancy

London DJ Shy One (Mali Larrington-Nelson) was spinning grime and garage at 14 and an advocate for LGBTQI+ and POC communities.

She and fellow UK-based Amsterdam-born DJ and resident Ruby Savage will be spinning sets bridging funk, boogie, dub, and house.

“This mammoth debut event is just a taste of what’s to come, with plans for even larger events, take-overs and collaborations across Australia and neighbouring Oceania countries this year,” NTS stated.

NTS started out as a DIY passion project in Hackney, London in 2011 to create an alternative to mainstream radio.

Boiler Room and Passion Pit club promoter Femi Adeyemi was made redundant from his day job.

He used the name of his Nuts To Soup music blog for his new project that was inspired by U.S. college stations like WFMU and KEXP.

“Honestly, there was nothing out there (in London) that highlighted the diversity of my music taste at that time,” he told Mixmag.

“So I did my best to set up a station that I wanted to listen to myself.”

Among the shows are “72 Nations” which traces the history of dub, Scattershot explores subjects as the discrimination gay refugees face, the manic Do!! You!!! is from Charlie Bones who began on a soul pirate station, and “Questing” leaps from South African gqom to Taiwanese folk to heavy dread.