Tash Sultana, the gender fluid multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter, producer and engineer, has been dubbed one of the hardest working music exports in Australia. Tash began playing the guitar from the age of 3 after being gifted the instrument from their late grandfather. From there Tash began to pick up other instruments such as piano/keyboard/synth, bass, drums/percussion, beatmaking/ sampling, beatboxing, trumpet, saxophone, flute, mandolin, oud, harmonica, lap steel, panpipes and arranged it into loop style performances along with percussive and finger tapping style guitar playing coinciding with a vocal range stretching 5 octaves.

By the age of 13 Tash was playing at open mic nights up to 6 times a week across Victoria. Tash’s refusal to conform to normal society pushed the young artist onto the streets of Melbourne to busk, where they harnessed crowd stopping performances on Melbourne’s famous ‘Bourke Street’. From there, a viral bedroom recording of ‘Jungle’ in 2016 skyrocketed the artist off the street and in front of the world. Since then Tash has broken attendance records on non-stop across sold out global arena tours, their accolades rush in faster than there is time to count them. In 2019 alone, Tash sold over half a million tickets across the globe.

Originally from Australia’s Mornington Peninsula, Tones And I journeyed to Byron Bay in early 2018 to take a chance at busking. On the first day she had crowds spilling onto the street, so Tones quit her retail job and decided to make Byron her new home where she lived out of her van for the year.

The genesis of her global smash “Dance Monkey” can be traced back to those performances. Born as a response to hecklers, the song poetically made history multiple times in the wake of its release. Capturing #1 in 30 countries around the world, Tones And I emerged as the most dominant artist ever in the history of the ARIA singles chart, spending a record breaking 24 weeks at #1. “Dance Monkey” became the most Shazamed single of all time, the most-streamed song ever by a female artist on Spotify, and the first Top 5 Billboard Hot 100 hit solely written by a woman since 2012. Clocking over 7 billion streams, it went quadruple-platinum in the US and garnered multi platinum or diamond certifications in 15 other countries, going 11-times platinum in Australia. “Dance Monkey” featured on Tones And I’s RIAA gold certified debut EP The Kids Are Coming alongside standout single “Never Seen The Rain.” The collection earned her four major wins at Australia’s ARIA Awards including: “Breakthrough Artist,” “Best Female Artist,” “Best Pop Release,” and “Best Independent Release,” with Tones And I also winning the 2020 International Songwriting Competition (ISC) and “Song Of The Year” and “Breakthrough Songwriter” at the APRA Music Awards. Plus, she delivered performances around the globe on her sold-out world tour, while making appearances at international festivals as well on major network TV shows including: The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, The Voice, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and The Today Show.

Everything set the stage for her 2021 full-length debut album, Welcome To The Madhouse. Tones And I preserved the integrity of her vision as the sole songwriter and co-producer on all 14 tracks, opening up about her journey thus far and beaming out a sweet homage to her late best friend T. She preceded the record with “Fly Away” before delivering an upbeat affirmation on the sky scraping single “Cloudy Day.” Welcome To The Madhouse is yet another step on her magical journey from the streets to the stratosphere. Tones and I’s latest single “Eyes Don’t Lie” is out now.

There’s an ease to the music Riley Pearce makes. That’s testament to how effortlessly he became a songwriter. Watching his Dad in cover bands inspired him to pick up the guitar. By 17, he was busking at local farmer’s markets—playing covers but sneaking in a few original folky compositions about what he saw around him or the relationships he had formed.

Not surprisingly, nature occupies a sizable piece of the artist’s musical DNA. For his latest recordings (Nettwerk Records), Riley rented a house on the southwest coast of Australia. “I wanted to let the sounds of the house and the environment filter in,” explains Riley. If you listen closely, you can hear the sounds of floorboards, the house’s gravel driveway, mallets thumped on a couch, the metronomic tapping of a friend’s collar bone, the crackling of a fire and more. Part empathetic meditation, Riley’s music possesses a depth of experience delivered through wafting melodies, thoughtfully blended found sounds and quietly introspective lyrics

For years now twin brothers Jack and Patrick Pierce’s high energy duo Pierce Brothers has been a staple of the Australian indie-folk/ blues & roots scene, captivating festival goers and headlining sold out venues the world over. Exploding onto the world stage in 2014, the brothers started their journey as buskers on Bourke street (alongside other incredible busking acts Tash Sultana and Tones and I), and soon became a must-see act selling out 3 Corner Hotels with the release of their breakout EP The Night Tree in 2014.

Shortly after, on the back of the success of The Night Tree, the pair played their first European set at Lowlands Festival in 2014. Soon the Melbourne duo began a steady journey building audiences and selling out shows all over the world, supporting artists the likes of The Cat Empire, St. Paul and the Broken Bones, Tones and I, and Tash Sultana just to name a few.

Having established themselves as an integral part of the music scene in Australia and abroad, the brothers have toured relentlessly – honing their craft and gaining fans across the globe as they go. The band’s music has grown with them over the years and has seen them release a top 15 ARIA debut album (Atlas Shoulders, coming in at #13) and two Top 10 ARIA EPs (The Records Were Ours and Into The Dirt), and have received over 30 million global streams.

The pair recently lived out their dream of headlining a maxed-out Forum Theatre in their hometown of Melbourne, before taking on a massive world tour, headlining venues all over the globe, playing arenas supporting Tash Sultana, as well as massive AAA festivals in North America, Europe, and Australia.

During the 2020 lockdown the boys retreated into the studio for 6 weeks and created their most ambitious record yet, completing their as yet untitled sophomore album entirely self-funded and releasing 100% independently early 2021.

Off the back of the success of their SOLD OUT regional Victorian tour, Australian indie-folk stars Pierce Brothers have just announced a complete run of Australian dates in what will be their biggest tour across the country since 2019!  Extending their already epic lap of the map, the two rocking brothers will be hitting up QLD, NSW, ACT, Western Australia, and finally back to South Australia (after a tour with Rodruigez in 2018 was indefinitely postponed).  Having released their sophomore album INTO THE GREAT UNKNOWN to much critical acclaim, (including featuring as Rolling Stone’s Album of the Week) the duo will be hitting up many regional venues, some for the first time, in a run that takes them right up to the middle of the year.

“With international touring suspended for the foreseeable future, we wanted to further explore regional centres of Australia,” explains lead guitarist and vocalist Pat Pierce, “visiting places that we’ve never played before like Dunsburough and Bundaberg, and getting back to places we haven’t been to in ages, like Geraldton and Sunshine Coast!”

Due to state border closures and the risk of postponing shows, the brothers held off announcing this extended run for as long as they could, so that they could head into the tour with the most reliable assurance that the shows could go ahead.

With a new setlist featuring brand new singles from the INTO THE GREAT UNKNOWN It’s Alright, Brother, and One, as well as many fan favourites, this tour is sure to sell out fast (if their first run of shows is anything to go by).

Maddy Jane is an independent singer-songwriter from the small island town of Bruny Island, Tasmania.

Telling it like it is since 2017; Maddy’s honest lyrics and captivating song writing have earned her a regular spot on triple j’s airways and a place on huge arena tours supporting the likes of Harry Styles and Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

With millions of streams for breakout tracks ‘Thank You and Sorry’ and ‘No Other Way’, Maddy’s ironic and direct storytelling is resonating across the globe.

After two years of heavy touring and sold out shows, Maddy bunked down in the studio and released her debut full-length album, ‘Not All Bad Or Good’ on May 1. The record scored triple j’s feature album and saw Maddy perform hit single ‘Perfection’s a Thing and You’re It’ for triple j’s Like a Version.

Produced by his collaborator and artistic confidante Matt Corby, on Wash My Sorrows Away, ARIA award winning Budjerah’s luminous vocals smoothly glide over the lo-fi production to elevate the track to spiritual proportions.

“Wash My Sorrows Away is my teenage heartbreak song. Everyone has tough times and we all have our own ways of dealing with sadness, and this song tells what it’s like for me when I’m in those situations. If I’m ever having a tough time I like to go home and get into the ocean, whether it’s surfing or just diving under for a few seconds, it helps me get out of my own head. ‘You know I try to keep myself out of mind’. It’s also about wanting to be with someone in particular, someone that takes up that space in your head ‘But I still keep you inside,’” muses Budjerah.

The new song comes off the back of news of 5 x ARIA nominations – including for Best Artist, Michael Gudinski Breakthrough Artist and Best Soul/RNB Release; as well as a NIMA win for Best New Talent.

Musically, the song follows on from his gleaming, soulful single Talk feat. MAY-A – an appeal to look up, take a beat, take a breath, and reconnect with your loved ones. The track is a joyful, much-needed tonic for a world riddled with misunderstanding and miscommunication and takes a clear cue from his idols and antecedents Sam Cooke and The Clark Sisters — patron saints of clarity and honesty.

He might be young, but there’s always been something wise-beyond-his-years about Budjerah. The Coodjinburra musician’s debut, self-titled EP, released earlier in 2021, displayed an aptitude for the sheen and indelibility of old-school soul singers, a quality that spoke to the classic records he was raised on growing up in coastal New South Wales.

Budjerah’s phenomenal run commenced in October 2020 with his acclaimed debut single Missing You, which landed the #1 most played position on triple j, and soon followed with his runaway hit single Higher, which achieved Top 30 national airplay.    Budjerah performed on The Sound, Music From The Home Front, and at the AFL Dreamtime match; and collaborated with dance music superstars PNAU. He announced a partnership with Warner Records US, was named an Apple Music Up Next artist and most recently was selected as  one of the artists from around the globe for #YouTubeBlack Voices Artist Class of 2022.

Budjerah’s personal highlights include supporting local luminaries including The Avalanches, Thelma Plum, Jack River and Lime Cordiale, and performing to a sold out crowd in Sydney who sang along adoringly to all his songs. “It was always my dream come true to perform to hundreds of people, and now it’s right in front of me,” Budjerah says. It makes sense: Budjerah’s music makes dreams feel like shining, tactile reality.

With a blazing trail of releases in his stead, singer-songwriter and platinum-award winning producer Garrett Kato shows no signs of slowing down, delivering his most palpable and relatable style of indie-folk to date.

Following the release of Take It Slowly, sophomore album hemispheres, and his 2021 EP Kumamoto, Garrett has amassed over 95 million worldwide streams. Having performed sold-out shows alongside Damien Rice and Ziggy Alberts and produced for a string of iconic Australian acts, Garrett is right where he needs to be.

Sharing the third single off his upcoming album, Secrets discusses mental health and the risk of keeping your troubles to yourself. “Having lost two of my friends to suicide, I wish I could’ve been there more and been able to help them with their struggles.” Being able to open up to people is important, as the world seemingly gets bigger and more challenging.

Australian tastemaker station triple j dubbed Garrett as the “producer and musician behind some of the most prominent sounds coming out of Byron Bay’s booming buskers scene” and rightly so; Garrett has worked with a string of iconic Aussie artists including Julia Stone, Ziggy Alberts, Dami Im, Tones and I, Busby Marou, Pete Murray, Kyle Lionhart, Riley Pearce, Jack Botts and more.

Honey vocals, dreamy synth and vibrant guitar riffs are fast becoming the signature of indie four-piece Death by Denim. Formed in Perth in 2016, the band is made up of close friends, Palle Mazzulla, Nikolas Ilidias, George Gunson and Hamish Macarthur.

Breakout single ‘Wiggy’ made waves in 2019; a sensory escapade that saw the band hit number 3 on the triple j most played charts and ink a global management deal with Lemon Tree Music. Three national tours and a heap of sold out shows later, the band returned to WA to record their debut album, ‘Sleepless and Sunkissed’.

Riding high off the huge success of Sleepless and Sunkissed, which saw the band soar to new heights with over 3 million streams on Spotify, high rotation at triple j, a sold-out national tour, an international deal with Paradigm Talent Agency and showcases at BIGSOUND 50 and SXSW, the band wanted to keep the momentum going and headed straight into the studio to record a new album-‘Moonbow’.

‘Moonbow’ is a dynamic leap from their first album, it is packed full of rich melody and lyrics that push and pull. There’s a lot more class and precision with every moment. Asonically transformative journey: it grabs your hand and weaves you through the woozy, guitar-laced echoes, introducing you to a hyper colour world of introspective commentary and self-reflection. Moonbow is available now via the band’s new record label ADA/Warner.

 In the Northern NSW town of Lismore, the “purple house” was a local landmark in the nineties. It’s here where Georgia Mae grew up surrounded by colour – a green kitchen, blue bedroom and yellow living room. It’s also here where Mae shaped her eclectic taste in music listening to Pink Floyd, Crowded House and Kate Bush, where she started taking piano lessons and where she learnt the art of storytelling from her writer mother. 

“In a way, the purple house shaped me as a person; it taught me to not be afraid of being colourful or standing out,” says Mae. 

At age four, Mae wrote her very first song sitting at the piano in the purple house. The song was called ‘Love Tree’ and Mae still remembers the chords and lyrics: 

When I look into your eyes 

I see the colour of the sky 

And sometimes I see you and me 

Together in a Love Tree 

Since her early days as a lyrical prodigy in Lismore, music has taken Mae to Brisbane where she studied at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music and was nominated for the state’s ‘Most Promising Female Songwriter’ and ‘Best Female Pop Artist’ at the Queensland Music Awards in 2016. 

It’s also taken her overseas; to Los Angeles where she landed a role as a writer and recording artist on television shows including Keeping Up With The Kardashians, to San Francisco where she worked in sound design at the illustrious Skywalker Sound and Warner Bros. Studios, and to the Arizona desert where the rumblings of her debut EP first stirred. 

While on a road trip back to California from New Mexico at the end of 2018, Mae flipped her car on a remote highway and rolled it six times. Covered in blood, with a concussion and a broken back, Mae escaped from the wreck and made it back to the highway where an ambulance took her to hospital. Her physical recovery took six months, but the mental journey is ongoing. 

“That moment was rock bottom. I had already been going through a rough time with a traumatic relationship, and then I had the car accident. It sounds like a cliché, but the accident really put things in perspective. There’s something about a near death experience that gives you a new lease on life. I knew I was lucky to be alive and I wanted to fulfil my purpose: which has always been music,” explains Mae, who returned to Australia in May 2020 to do just that. 

It was music that took Mae overseas and music that brought her back to Brisbane, where she’s spent the last year working her EP, Gigi and the Dragonfly. Nodding to her nickname and her favourite animal, the EP is a chapter in Mae’s life, a moment in time, the story so far. 

“Legend has it that dragonflies are a symbol of change, transformation, self-realisation and wisdom. They teach us how to live life and keep faith even amidst difficulties, and they help us to identify illusion and deceit, which is something I’ve struggled with in my relationships,” says Mae. “Also, there’s something about the word ‘dragon’ that sounds mystical and surreal, which is a great foundation for storytelling.” 

At her core, Mae is a storyteller. And with this EP, she is telling her own story. It’s a story about acknowledging trauma, understanding it and healing from it. For Mae, that story is best symbolised by blue flowers, the melancholy of the colour blue and the beauty of nature’s blooms. 

“There are always going to be good and bad things in life, and we shouldn’t shy away from either of them. We can’t stop the rain, so let’s dance in it,” says Mae of the meaning behind the last track on her EP, appropriately named Blue Flowers. 

The first single on the EP, Gentle, could be mistaken for a pop hit about young love, but it’s actually an ode to Mother Earth and a rally cry for action on the Climate Crisis. The track starts on Mae’s “parent’s porch back home” thinking about what it would have been like 10,000 years ago when the sky was clearer, the reef was alive, and the bush wasn’t burnt. 

It’s fitting that the first single on Mae’s debut EP is inspired by nature, much like the first song she ever wrote: Love Tree. 

When Mae thinks about the four-year-old sitting at the piano in the purple house, she has only one message for her younger self. “Trust yourself. Even when things go horribly wrong, know that the hard times are part of the journey,” she says. “Oh, and don’t be afraid to be colourful – like the purple house.” 

Growing up in the Blue Mountains, Little Green developed a sense of storytelling and musicality inspired by the nature around her. Self-taught on flute, sax, guitar, piano, bass and voice, she has used her talents to create a charmingly child like musical world.

Having released two beautifully intimate projects, The Night EP and dreambird EP in 2021, and writing a soundtrack to the book,This Working Life, published by Hardie Grant, 2022 is set to be a breakout year for this songwriter on the rise.

Mitch Santiago is a self-taught multi-instrumentalist from Perth, Australia.

At nine years old, Mitch found a guitar on the side of the road, put some strings on it, and started playing it every day. His passion for music was ignited and he taught himself to play using the free thirty minutes a day on the trial version of App Yousician. That was until his tenth birthday when Mitch got the present he was hoping for, his parents bought him guitar lessons, something he has been doing ever since, for the last five years.

From learning the guitar, Mitch started busking and performing around Perth, with his parents becoming his Managers, Roadies, Booking Agents and Taxi. Mitch then added drums, bass, piano, pan flute, mandolin, and harmonica to his ever-growing self-taught repertoire. “I’ve sort of got like an ear for things, maybe from when I learnt the Viola for a few years when I was 7.”

Very soon Mitch’s bedroom was so full of instruments and music gear that he could barely walk around the room, creating the need for him to set up a home studio in the Granny flat of his house. It is here where Mitch spends most of his time; jamming, song writing, recording, and producing.

Finding inspiration across a variety of artists and genres Mitch loves to experiment with instrumentation and production when creating his music, he shares, “You take bits and pieces from here and there, the melody might be more psych/rock, can chuck in a jazz lick or a blues lick, drums can be rap inspired. It’s not just a particular Artist or genre that inspires me, it’s actually a lot deeper than just that.”

Continually working on his music and artistry while completing his schooling has been challenging at times but as Mitch explains, “My parents are really supportive, I probably missed the equivalent to a Term of school last year. They still want me to graduate year 12 next year, but they know music is first, and homework is after,” Mitch explains.

In 2020 Mitch self-released the song ‘Falling’ which he wrote, performed and produced himself, with the track gaining over 1 million streams and counting. “I’ve had times where the room has been completely full of a couple hundred people, and at least fifty people or more are singing the words to ‘Falling’, that’s pretty cool, Mitch shares, “I love playing LIVE, that’s the main inspiration for me to keep playing,”

This year Mitch will be releasing new music and has plans for a national tour mid-year.

Hailing from Sydney, Roy Bing is an artist/producer with a flare for melody and story. His breakout viral single ‘Rabs’ ft. Ray ‘Rabs’ Warren, a tribute to ‘The Voice’ of rugby league, climbed to #5 on the Spotify Viral Chart, #9 on Shazam and received feature coverage on TikTok, MTV, Sportsbet, triple j, triple j unearthed, Sydney Morning Herald, 2GB, Channel 9 and more.

Roy Bing’s latest single ‘Signals Crossed’ feat. Alter Boy, BOI, ANGE deals with the notion of loving and losing, and figuring out where you stand. The collaboration was birthed during lockdown and was recorded entirely remotely.

As a songwriter/producer, Roy Bing has recently been in the studio with a number of local and international artists including; MAY-A, Tyron Hapi, Eleura, Olive Amun, Nicole Millar, Carla Wehbe, BOI, ChillPill and Rei Brown.

Roy Bing’s musical journey began as a kid on an old second-hand piano, figuring out how to play his favourite songs by ear, which led him to studying at the Berklee College of Music in Boston where he honed his craft. Now, reminiscent of the genre-hopping Mark Ronson, Benny Blanco and Kenny Beats, Roy Bing transcends the boundaries of electronic, dance, pop and hip-hop music.

Jan Skubiszewski is a multi-award-winning composer, producer, songwriter and sound engineerfrom Melbourne, Australia. He is also a professional multi-instrumentalist.

Jan is defined by his unique ability to transform a promising conceptinto a hit song or record–a feathe has achieved repeatedly, across genres and generations.

Jan has had runaway successes in genres ranging from hip hop to roots and rock n roll, and has produced ARIA-award winning records with Australian icons such as John Butler. His work as a record producer and composer for film and television has won critical acclaim and a raft of awards and nominations at ARIA, APRA, AIR, Film Critics Circle of Australia, Screen Music Awards, NationalIndigenous Music Awards and many more, as well as production credits on several gold and platinum records.

Jan is an advocate of Indigenous Australian music, and has worked with numerous celebrated First Nations artists such as Archie Roach, A.B. Original, Yothu Yindi’s founding members, Deadly Award winning Djolpa McKenzie, Dan Sultan and Music Victoria Award-winning Benny Walker, and has composed music for Indigenous TV shows and films including Little J and Big Cuzand Bran Nue Dae