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

Andy Hazel, Journalist

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Andy Hazel is a writer and musician based in Melbourne. He is also the senior editorial producer at The Saturday Paper to which he contributes profiles on musicians, actors and directors. His writing also appears in IndieWire, The Monthly, Guardian Australia and A Rabbit's Foot. Andy is also the producer and host of Twin Peaks The Return: A Season Three Podcast.

Reviews / Live
Live Review: Kirin J Callinan, Standish/Carlyon, Scraps, Jonny Telafone
Three bands with a theme, captured at exactly the right time; tonight is a gig for the time capsule.
Reviews / Live
Live Review: You & The Colonies, Winter Moon, Velma Grove
Songwriters David Scarr and Tim Steers are perfect foils for each other and when Cynthia Sear’s voice joins, it’s rare bliss.
Reviews / Live
Live Review: Toy, Frowning Clouds
Naturally, the gig ends in a frantic burst of strumming, kneeling and pedal cranking, but even this (album-closing ten-minute epic Kopter) is reined in carefully. No encores, no need; just nine songs and we’re good.
Features / Music
Love This Symphony
"I started getting texts one day last year from friends saying ‘The Whitlams are on triple j’, and I was like ‘bullshit’, because we hadn’t been for ten years, so it was a real surprise to turn on and hear these album tracks."
Reviews / Live
Live Review: Beaches, Bushwalking, Early Woman
Another example of one of this city’s finest bands owning it; this was always going to be a great night.
Reviews / Live
Live Review: Walk The Moon - Northcote Social Club
For a band’s first headline show south of the equator to be this good, it’s easy to see that fame beckons.
Reviews / Live
Live Review: Bored Nothing, Step-Panther, Gung Ho
From the moment Fergus Miller leads the five-piece Bored Nothing into their set it’s clear a wry, fumbling intelligence is at work, though as it turns out, it’s given few constraints.
Features / Music
Running Wild
"We were really conscious of trying to fill the gaps that our first record had, which was just two instruments, two vocals and nothing much in between."
Features / Music
Strangely Familiar
"Making records was this thing I had to learn. For years, I don’t think Jebediah were all that good at recording. Only in the last phase of my life have I started to get the hang of it."
Reviews / Live
Live Review: Ainslie Wills, Spender, Oscar Lush
Closing This Is What I Write is skin-prickling in its beauty and with a delicate encore of Radiohead’s Nude, closes one of the shows of the year.
Features / Music
Rising To Perfection
“We are working on it right now. We love playing Australia and it was where we did the very first recording of this album, at a studio in Byron Bay, so for us it has a special meaning.”
Reviews / Live
Live Review: PiL, Harmony
A surprise revisiting of Leftfield/Lydon’s banging ‘90s club anthem, Open Up, which proves that, whether aiming for the mind or body, Lydon knows the truth never misses.
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