The Australian Music Prize just announced the shortlist of the best Australian albums for the last twelve months and it is another strong. This is I think my eighth year of being on the judging panel, and the round two judging was the hardest I’ve experienced. Essentially there are three rounds of judging, and the second round involves getting longlisted albums to a shortlist. Earlier in the year I was thinking it was a slow year for Australian music but it has really come home strong over the last few months, in a couple of weeks’ time, I’ll gather with the fellow judges who come from music retail, music media and artists to come up with this years winner for the nine incredible albums listed below.
Baker Boy “DJANDJAY”
Courtney Barnett “Creature Of Habit”
Ecca Vandal “LOOKING FOR PEOPLE TO UNFOLLOW”
Genesis Owusu “REDSTAR WU & THE WORLDWIDE SCOURGE”
Georgia Knight “Beanpole”
Grace Cummings “Bloodhorse!”
Julia Jacklin “The Gem”
Karnivool “In Versus”
Swapmeet “Mount Zero”
The Nitocris first time on vinyl release has bn out for about a month now and has been getting plenty of love. The band played their first reunion show at Marrickville Bowling Club a few weeks back to a huge reception and now they prepare to play their second and final show this Saturday at Crowbar. They’ll be supported by Private Wives and there are still a limited number of tickets available. The ocean swirl vinyl variant is sold out but you can still get hold of the aquamarine and black variants.
Just announced is an in store on October 30th from Zach Stephenson, the release day of his solo album. You would of course know Zach from Hockey Dad and while there are certainly elements of his band on the album (similar to what Tim Rogers does on his solo albums), there are plenty of other moments where he takes a genre diversion, including a great track where he duets with Maise from Belair Lip Bombs, in a slightly Lee & Nancy vibe.
