Bertie Blackman

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Bertie first stepped onto the scene with Headway (2004), her folk-inspired debut album powered by acoustic guitar. The album’s single ‘Favourite Jeans’ became Bertie’s radio breakthrough and saw her dubbed “Australia’s underground queen”. On her second album, Black (2006) Bertie returned armed with an electric guitar delivering a sexier, gritty rock sound.

Constantly evolving as an artist, Bertie continues to develop her sound on Secrets and Lies (2009) blending electronic influences with her signature vocal style and penchant for brutally honest lyrics in a modern exploration of pop music. “I wanted to do something more electronic and less band-oriented” says Blackman, “It’s dark, but it’s also a pop record”.

Black Cab

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Melbourne band Black Cab is singer and programmer Andrew Coates and guitarist James Lee and features live and recorded performances from a number of well known Australian musicians including drummer Richard Andrew (Princess 1.5, Underground Lovers, Crow), bassist Anthony Paine (High Pass Filter), programmer Steve Law (Zen Paradox), and guitarist Alex Jarvis (Amplifier Machine, Alex Jarvis Band). Black Cab’s sound is a blend of rock and electronics with references to Europe and America in the 1970′s.

Black Cab’s third album, Call Signs will be released in Australian in July 2009 through Sydney label Laughing Outlaw. After an extended lay-off the new album features a strong return to keyboards and found sounds loosely inspired by 1970′s Germany – a time of fear, uncertainty and social unrest not dissimilar to the world today. The new album was produced by Woody Annison (Children Collide, Altamont Diary) and features a guest lead vocal from Died Pretty’s Ron Peno. The first double track single ‘Rescue’/'Black Angel’ will be available in early June. Black Angel is a tribute to the tragic genius 70′s singer songwriter Judee Sill.

Kid Sam

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Tall cousins Kishore Ryan (Seagull, Otouto) and Kieran Ryan form the melted, subverted, deconstructed troubadour duo Kid Sam.

Their debut self-titled LP has received tremendous support from community radio, being named Triple R album of the week (mid March) and nominated for Triple J award Album of the Year.

They make songs that traverse themes of violence, romance and the politics of the everyday, distilling the history of intelligent song writing within them. Kieran’s flud and gritty guitar playing is the vehicle for songs that are remarkably well crafted and timeless. The drums are constantly reassessing their shape as Kieran’s rich vocals romance the listener. The result is subtle, subversive folk/rock’n'roll/pop.

Lisa Mitchell

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At just 18, Lisa Mitchell is shaping up to be a new kind of singer-songwriting protege. She’s a teen, and the music is pop, but rather than teen-pop, this talented young woman is fast finding a voice all of her own. It’s candy-coated folk-pop with a fierce and often dark heart.

Her music embodies the tenderness of Laura Marling, the wordplay of Regina Spektor and the free spirit of Feist, but Lisa nonetheless inhabits a magical world that few other artists are exploring.

Born in England to a Scottish father, she moved to Australia at three years old and made it her home. She grew up in something of a musical time-warp, grateful to her father for raising her on Bob Dylan (“the best man in the world”), Cat Stevens and Van Morrison. All the while finding obsessions of her own, like Bright Eyes, or The Killers, whose Hot Fuss album “got me through Year 10 at high school.”

Lucie Thorne

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Described as “Australia’s PJ Harvey… possessing the punch of Cat Power and the wise words of Joni Mitchell” (Courier Mail), Lucie Thorne has earned her place as one of the most striking lyricists and voices of Australian contemporary song. Her latest release – Black Across The Field – has garnered extraordinary attention from the country’s leading critics, being hailed as “diverse, profound, breath-taking” (Rhythms), “intelligent… gorgeous” (****The Australian), “spellbinding” (J-Mag) and as one of the finest albums of the year. Black Across the Field combines Thorne’s spacious, gritty rock n roll with startlingly original dark-folk, with that signature warmth and expressiveness for which her live shows have become so renowned.

Since the album’s release in March 2009, Lucie Thorne has toured extensively around Australia, playing shows in every state and territory, and she has just returned home from a massive 2 month European tour – which included shows in France, Holland, Germany, Czech Republic, Turkey, Romania and the UK.

Oh Mercy

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Alexander Gow and Thomas Savage, the duo at the heart of Oh Mercy, blend evocative and intelligent lyricism with a strong pop sensibility on their debut album Privileged Woes, showcasing the depth of the young songwriters polished pop brilliance.

2009 has seen Oh Mercy hand picked by Ben Folds to play the Sydney Opera House and chosen to tour with Little Birdy, Lisa Mitchell, Kaiser Chiefs and Ben Kweller. Oh Mercy have recently concluded their national ‘Privileged Woes’ album launch tour, selling out shows all over Australia. They soon play their last club shows for the year, co-headlining with The Veils before heading out on the summer festival circuit.

Sarah Blasko

“This album feels more like it honestly expresses my tastes and my feelings. I think that in some of the songs you feel that you’re transported to another era, but I think it’s difficult to pinpoint when or where that is,” says Sarah Blasko of her latest release, As Day Follows Night.

Blasko’s third album takes the listener on an almost timeless journey to an alluring, yet mysterious destination. An artist never content with repetition, hers is a body of work that displays progression over tangents. Her vision becomes clearer with time, as comparisons fade. This is a singer and a sound beyond easy classification.

The Mess Hall

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For The Birds is a record that sees The Mess Hall heading towards a new kind of beatnik soul that is very much their own. Every song is infused with a gritty kind of beauty, a surfeit of swing and sense of experimentation that is a natural progression from everything they achieved on their previous release, ‘Devils Elbow’ (winner of the Australian Music Prize in 2007). That album set the band apart as one who create their own world and fill it with narratives of the broken, the forgotten, the misunderstood, and very occasionally, the redeemed, and here those themes are refined and expanded upon.

Urthboy

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Urthboy’s first solo album Distant Sense of Random Menace was released in 2004 (“Aussie Hip Hop needs this album” The Brag) and featured singles No Rider and Come Around. But it was 2007′s The Signal that kicked things up a notch.

The first single ‘We Get Around’ cracked the top 25 in triple j‘s Hottest 100 while The Signal was hailed as “a classic” by Rolling Stone. It received two AIR Award nominations; a J Award nomination (Triple J’s Album of the Year award); and it was shortlisted in the prestigious Australian Music Prize (Best Album 2007).