Established in 2000, the Australian Music Radio Airplay Project (Amrap) has been helping Australian musicians to distribute and promote their music on community radio stations around the country. Amrap is funded by the CBF and managed by the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia (CBAA).
One artist and broadcaster who uses Amrap is Kurt Eckardt. Kurt currently works at PBS FM overseeing social media output, and is also a freelance music publicist and events producer through his independent label Psychic Hysteria. You can also hear Kurt co-hosting Homebrew, a weekly two-hour all-Australian music program on PBS.
Kurt has been a long-time user of Amrap and believes the benefit for undiscovered local artists is unmatched.
“In 2014, I started a solo music project called Astral Skulls. It was the first music that I had made in a while, and I was trying to figure out how to get it out into the world. As an independent, DIY musician with zero budget, discovering Amrap was absolutely priceless,” Kurt tells CBF.
“To have a direct conduit to community radio shows nationwide, for free, is just incredible. I was able to start uploading music as soon as it was finished, and was then able to contact shows and direct them to have a listen.”
Kurt is also a musician in the post-punk band Hearts and Rockets and has uploaded 22 original songs to Amrap alongside 4 remixes of their songs by other artists. Astral Skulls also has 10 singles on Amrap.
He says the impact of Amrap is “incalculable” for helping bands like Hearts and Rockets and being featured in the top 10 lists has really helped get their music discovered by broadcasters and stations.
“I think one of the benefits of Amrap for inner-city bands like ours is to be able to form a connection to more regional areas through their community radio stations — I love seeing that we’ve been played on regional or rural stations, it really means a lot to know that people are discovering our music.”
Amrap also helps musicians like Kurt form relationships with broadcasters directly, as they can see who has played their music through the Amrap website, which gives musicians an opportunity to follow up with them directly.
“While that’s obviously really helpful in gaining airplay, it has also helped us when we’ve booked tours — our main contacts in other cities were formed through community radio, and we have Amrap to thank for a lot of that.”
Is Amrap worth it for musicians?
“If you’re creating music in Australia and not putting it on Amrap, you’re really missing out on a great opportunity,” says Kurt.
“It takes a few minutes of your time and gives you and your music so many more opportunities to be heard all around the country. Trust me, it’s worth it!”
Listen to Kurt’s music on Amrap >
Photo: Kurt’s band, Hearts and Rockets, playing at Crowbar in Sydney September 2019.
About our grants
In addition to funding major projects like Amrap, we also invest in a range of strategic projects that foster long-term resilience, enhances skills and knowledge, and develop cost-effective centralised solutions to support community media organisations across Australia.
We also run two Content and Development & Operations grant rounds each year, usually in January and July. You can check when our next grant round is open on the key dates page.
Quick Response Grants are also available outside our grant rounds for community media organisations that are experiencing emergencies.
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