Photo by Yan Chen

Sydney has always had a special fondness for Brisbane. There’s no competitive animosity like with those soggy black-clad laneways-and-lattes hipster snobs down in Melbourne*. We're just a couple of sunny dispositions chatting over a beer and swapping awesome tunes. Brissy’s music scene is a special and vibrant mix of literate pop, shit-kicking punk rock and everything in between. Now the city that gave us The Saints, The Go-Betweens, the Bee Gees, the Gurge, The Finger, The Garden, and the glory that was Rhubarb, has a new musical force to be reckoned with.

soundslikebrisbane is a new collective that brings together 17 indie labels (Plus One Records, Mere Noise, Dew Process, Turkeyneck, Room 40, Someone Good, Pinnacles Music, SUGARRUSH, Lofly, El Nino El Nino, Red Tape Entertainment, Starving Kids, Valve Records, Obisidian Records, 777 Operations, and Useless Art Records) and the dozens of artists they work with, all joining forces to make a sort of musical Voltron of indie goodness. This A-team is standing together to promote Brisbane tunes to the world – check out their website for awesome goodies, news and music history – all Brisbane, all the time.

To celebrate the launch of the collective, they’re giving away a killer mix of eighteen tracks from artists like Mr Maps, Carry Nation, DZ Deathrays, Regurgitator and I Heart Hiroshima – all for free! Gratis! Zero clams!

You can download the sampler at their website or stream it on Soundcloud.

*Just joking, Melbs, we love you really. We’re still down to have a pot of home-brew fig cider at that pop-up tapas cupboard at 3am, yeah? Cool.