Founded in 2009, Sounds Australia is a joint venture between Australia’s government and the country’s music industry focused on amplifying and promoting the wide range of contemporary music coming out of Australia.
Designed to offer Australian artists greater industry access, Sounds Australia frequently organizes networking events and artist showcases, and facilitates stages at international events such as SXSW in Austin, Texas, The Great Escape in Brighton, UK, and other global music industry events.
Digital Export Producer Dom Alessio spoke to DISCO about how the platform helps Sounds Australia better target global music supervisors, creating playlists of the artists who are performing at Sounds Australia showcases, and how DISCO has improved engagement with Australian artists on a global scale. “It’s very hard to be front of mind with people if you’re not in front of them all the time,” Dom says. “DISCO helps shorten the distance.”
By utilizing DISCO playlists, specific track metadata, and tracking playlist Insights, Dom says Sounds Australia is able to increase Australian artists’ discoverability overseas.
“We always really loved DISCO, and we wanted to encourage more and more people to use it,” Dom says of how he first started using the platform. “My background is in media. I was in radio for a long time, and we would have killed for something like DISCO. Like, this is such a perfect way to receive music.”
The Sounds Australia DISCO Catalog, accessible to music supervisors in the Discover Music feed in DISCO.
Better Connecting Australian Composers With Global Music Supervisors
Dom says one of Sounds Australia’s goals has been to help facilitate getting more Australian music into film and TV. Because around 90% of music supervisors use DISCO on a daily basis to send, receive, and manage music, it’s important that Sounds Australia be able to meet them where they are.
“The industry back home really wanted more of those connections,” he says. “I think that’s when we started to really see how DISCO could work really well for us, using it as a platform to try and target music supervisors. We know that so many use DISCO, and DISCO itself has evolved to have that functionality where supervisors can discover music. That was a bit of a light bulb moment for us.”
Creating Australian Music Playlists on DISCO
The first time Sounds Australia used DISCO in a significant way was when at the end of 2024, they organized a “sync mission” where 10 Australian screen composers traveled to Los Angeles. The week-long program comprised meetings and networking events with supervisors, production houses, studios, and other industry players. “We really utilized DISCO,” Dom says. “We got composers to put music on the platform and used that as a way to get their music out to the supervisors, production houses, and the people we were meeting with.”
A well loved Sounds Australia events booklet, featuring artist specific QR codes for DISCO playlists
Since then, Sounds Australia has created playlists on DISCO for their events featuring Australian artists and composers; anyone attending the events they work at can access the playlists with a QR code that are either presented on site or printed inside physical booklets they hand out.
SXSW 2025 DISCO Playlist from Sounds Australia
“2025 really for us is really honing our presence, honing our strategy on DISCO, and honing the way that we use it. It does feel like a work in progress, but I’m really excited about the opportunities that DISCO can provide to help get Australian music in front of music supervisors from around the world.”
