Indigo FM’s latest Playlist 21.0 is officially on our airwaves. It is highlighted by 900 songs featuring 72% Australian content and 15% Indigenous content. As we cap the maximum number of songs per artist at 2, this allows for 650-700 different artists. The Indigenous content equates to 135 songs by over 100 different artists.
Indigo FM President Scott Landells explained that setting such ambitious targets, directs the volunteer-run radio station’s energy to a creative exploration of what music is available. “On this latest playlist we feature some remote and bush recordings conducted in Western Australia and Northern Territory. WA Music have an ongoing project they commenced in 2004. We purchased their most recent release Demos from the Ngaanyatjarra Lands (2022) and feature all 14 tracks on this Playlist. Another compilation we purchased recently was the Wantok Music Vol 3 album (2022). Wantok Music is a leading, not-for-profit Music Label representing First Nations and World Music groups of Australia and Oceania. And of course we also have a number of current day indigenous bands and artists such as Tia Gostelow, Thelma Plum, Charlie Needs Braces, King Stingray, Caiti Baker, Yirrmal, Birdz, Alice Skye, Briggs, DRMNGNOW, Miiesha, Emma Donovan and many more.”
“We’re also eternally grateful to the many record labels that send through their new releases on a regular basis, and to our volunteers who sort through them and put them forward for each playlist.”
As well as embracing diversity, Indigo FM Playlists are renowned for celebrating the unique and quirky. For example it’s quite usual to find long tracks clocking in at 7 minutes plus on Indigo FM.
This Playlist has 10 songs 7 minutes or longer headed by New York experimental veterans Swans, their hypnotic track “Paradise Is Mine” clocking in at 9:24, It’s closely followed by two local psychedlic tracks – King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard’s “Iron Lung” (9:05) and Even frontman Ashley Naylor’s guitar instrumental SPACESHIP (8:51). Also in that 10 is the much loved late 60’s classic – Suite: Judy Blue Eyes by Crosby Stills and Nash (7:24). And rounding out our 10 longest songs on this latest Playlist is Connecticut, USA 5 piece Goose with their track “Hungersite” (7:07). If you follow Goose’s Bandcamp page, you’d notice they release several digital albums by the week! What they have become adept at doing is uploading high quality audio recordings of their concerts to Bandcamp, usually the next day. In 2023 they have alread released a staggering 47 albums!!!
Landells explained the thinking behind what some may see as an exercise in indulgence. “So much of radio everywhere peddles the idea that a song can’t be longer than 4 minutes, yet think of the classics – Dylan’s ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ rambles along over 6 minutes, Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway To Heaven’ runs just shy of 8 minutes, Arcade Fire’s ‘Reflektor’ comes in at 7 1/2 minutes. Then there are shorter ‘radio edits’ where a great 4:30 song is cut back to 3:30. Why? We like to think our audience has a decent attention span and appreciates long-form music. We think our Playlist which in total clocks in at around 55 hours and has 900 songs ought to have room for pretty much everything. 10 x 7 minute songs out of 900 is around one every 5-6 hours. At the other end of the scale there are 17 songs that run under 2 minutes. You will hear all genres on our Playlists – world music, Britpop, folk, hip hop, soul, indie rock, country, bluegrass, indie folk, grunge, shoegaze, electronic, Americana, punk, blues and obviously a lot of traditional indigenous music.”
On the quirkier side of things we feature a track by a 70yo artist Leonard “Lowdown” Brown who will soon release his debut album.
Artists local to NE Vic / Riverina on Playlist 21.0 include Well Into Winter, The Northern Folk, Asha Bright, Eastbound Buzz, Brent Shirley, Dean Haitani, Liv Cartledge, Surprise Chef, Toby Mobbs, Fanny Lumsden, Luke Mac, Jack Gregory and Rhys Duursma.
When it comes to artists having appeared at the 2023 Yackandandah Folk Festival, we have that well covered too with Dean Haitani, The Burning Hell, Emily Barker, Hannah Schmidli, The Water Runners, Gretta Ziller, The Humbuckin’ Pickups, Jayda Jean, Daniel Champagne, Fred Smith, The Beez, Tim McMillan & Rachel Snow, The Weeping Willows, Jarrod Shaw and John Smith.
Indigo FM’s Playlist supplies around 70-80 hours of music per week to each site. It’s what is played from midnight – 7am 7 days per week as well as around 40% of the “daylight hours” air time between 7am and 8pm at night.
You can tune in to a live-stream of Indigo FM any time here