Fresh Finds: Class Of 2025 – Aussie Acts To Add To Your Playlist

Joe Dolan, Journalist

Joe Dolan

In 2016, I was studying professional writing when an email dropped into my inbox with an opportunity to intern with a budding street press magazine (those were a thing back then). By the end of the eight-or-so-week course I was hooked - and for some bizarre reason,The Musicdecided to keep me around.

Since then I’ve gone on to review countless live gigs, albums, standup sets, theatre shows and gotten to interview some bone fide legends along the way too. Nowadays, I even perform and work on the occasional show myself, but I still like to find time to get out amongst the action whenever I can.

If it weren’t forThe Music, I can genuinely say my life would be totally different. Definitely more boring, to say the least.

Reviews / Arts
Strangers In Between (Cameron Lukey, Don’t Be Down Productions)
"A wonderfully funny and beautiful drawn narrative."
Reviews / Live
Live Review: Miss Blanks, Jesswar, Matka
"Her followers are devout... screaming their love to the singer after every song."
Features / Music
Why Wafia Has Decided Not To Hold Back Anymore
"It was this whole fascination with music: you can reprint it and you can duplicate it, and all that stuff, but you can't actually hold it."
Features / Music
The Music 2017 Writers' Poll: Joe Dolan
Features / Arts
After A Year On The Road, Arj Barker Is Finding The Funny In Overdue Home Improvements
"I'll know pretty quickly if something just isn't working. The silence of an audience is usually a pretty good indicator"
Reviews / Live
Live Review: Sampa The Great, Fortunes, The Harpoons, Spike Fuck, Marcus Whale
"It's difficult to tell whether the location or Tembo herself is behind it, but Sampa The Great drifts effortlessly into a modern, beat-heavy sermon tonight."
Reviews / Live
Live Review: Miscellanea
"HTRK's ability to create such beauty from tragedy is utterly transcendent."
Reviews / Arts
Chris D'Elia
"He can shut down hecklers faster than any other comic around, and his callbacks to improvised material show his impressive ability as a performer."
Reviews / Arts
James Nokise - So So Gangsta
"Nokise could take over any late show host and hold his own without breaking a sweat."
Reviews / Arts
Please, Continue (Hamlet) (Yan Duyvendak, Roger Bernat, Melbourne Festival)
"The lack of any fourth-wall is the X-factor that makes this production so phenomenally successful."
Reviews / Arts
All Of My Friends Were There (Guerrilla Museum, Melbourne Festival)
"From the outset, this is not your average show."
Reviews / Live
Live Review: SAD13, Lubulwa, Freya
"Dupuis is a modest badass from before the show even starts and there's no way anyone's going to forget that after tonight."
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