Ashleigh Dallas tops Amrap Regional Chart

Community radio shows a huge amount of support for Australian music, with almost 40% of music played coming from local artists. Taste-making presenters excel at giving airtime to an incredible spread of what Aussie artists have to offer. The Amrap Metro and Amrap Regional Charts provide insight into what’s getting airplay and attention on community radio each week. Here’s the lowdown on some tunes charting this week.

Monnone Alone – #6 Amrap Metro

Melbourne quartet Monnone Alone are gearing up to release their first album in six years. Since 2013’s Together at Last, Monnone Alone have refined and cultivated their sound, mixing indie-pop and classic rock to great effect. Recorded and mixed by Melbourne-based Welsh producer Gareth Parton (Foals, Big Scary), with assistance from drummer Gus Franklin, Summer of the Mosquito is a big old sun-smooch from a Melbourne band in no hurry to be anywhere but the present, and a songwriter happy to glimpse back briefly before being swept forward in life’s inevitable undertow. Summer of the Mosquito is the titular opening track and latest single from the soon to be released LP. The band work up a vigorous power-pop lather, complete with jangling 12-string guitar and layered voices evoking a time long-gone but, as the song’s lyrics suggest, far from forgotten. Brisbane’s 4ZZZ, Edge Radio in Hobart and Melbourne’s 96.5 Inner FM have already rolled down their windows to let this one out.

Aaron Pollock – #2 Amrap Regional

22 year-old Melburnian Aaron Pollock has become renowned for his unique folk-blues sound, establishing a following throughout Australia and stunning audiences with his original writing and fingerpicking guitar style. Influenced by the likes Bob Dylan and Robert Johnson from a young age, Pollock steadily found his sound amid classics of ‘Greenwich Village folk, southern blues and modern rock’. Touring extensively throughout Australia since he was 18, Pollock plays regularly in Melbourne and has already found himself at the heart of the city’s blues scene, supporting acts such as Ash Grunwald, Shaun Kirk and the Pierce Brothers in 2018. Sweet Home Chicago is a stripped back cover of an old blues standard and the first track on his new album, The Blues Tapes. Pollock plucks away, delivering rough and ready riffs that weave his husky words together. This is one for the back porch, the rocking chairs and dimly lit pubs. Victoria’s North West FM, Fraser Coast FM in Queensland and 5GTR in SA are already tapping along to this one.

Joan & The Giants – #10 Amrap Metro

Hailing from Perth, Joan & The Giants are a recently formed indie alt-pop outfit already getting plenty of attention in their freshman year. The trio came together from unlikely places; Grace from an organic farm down South of Perth and Aaron from a remote Indigenous community outside of Broome called Beagle Bay. They met their drummer Riley in the city and formed the band from there. Following the success of their debut single, Hold Me, their latest single, Cruel is concerned with the toxicity of self-involved relationships with the those who seek to hold you back. It’s about pushing through the dark times and learning to grow and protect yourself from the ones or things that hurt you. Steady and somewhat haunting thanks to some gorgeous, layered vocals, Cruel has the momentum of a road song and the orchestral uplift of a ballad. Joan & The Giants are getting a lot of love in their home state with plays at Perth’s RTR FM, The Voice of the Avon in the Central Wheatbelt of WA.

Peak Twins – #3 Amrap Metro

Peak Twins return with their highly anticipated sophomore album Beloved, following their cult classic self-titled debut released back in 2013. Founding members Joel Carey and Liam Kenny formed the group in their share house in 2012 and have since expanded to a six-piece live band. Their upcoming second album, Beloved drops in June and has been described as a ‘richly rendered exercise in melodrama and melancholy.’ Their latest single, Water is essentially a series of positive affirmations, with a chorus that reminds its listener that no matter how much strength one can muster, ‘Love don’t come easy at all’. Combining elements of outlaw country, brit-rock and just a hint of psychedelia, Water is a sweeping testament to the uniqueness of the Melbourne outfit. Byron Bay’s Bay FM, Sydney’s FBi Radio and Melbourne’s PBS are all giving this one a lot of love and rightly so.

Material World Orchestra – #8 Amrap Metro

Formed in late 2018 in Perth, Material World Orchestra consists of Shaun McIlroy, Curtis McEntee and Jamie Turner who initially started the band as a recording project after learning of each other’s passion for vintage synthesisers. In turn, their sound is rich with vintage Roland synths, electronic drum sequences and vocodedvocals. It’s a sound reminiscent of 80’s synth wave and 70’s disco funk. Shortly after forming, the band set out to write and record their first batch of material in a log cabin located in the hills of Western Australia. With the vision to seclude themselves away, the three-piece got to work on the D.I.Y recording project and with the culmination of their equipment and recording knowledge they wrote and recorded several tracks including debut single, Lost In The Future. The single plays on themes of losing one’s self whilst travelling through time and a longing to share the future with someone from the present and wanting to take them back. A band to keep an eye on, Material World Orcestra is already getting love from Sydney’s 2RRR, FBi Radio and Perth’s RTRFM.

See the full Amrap Charts at www.airit.org.au.