Online radio station Groundfloor is calling on up-and-coming DJs and experienced electronic musicians to submit a 60-minute set that best demonstrates their skills, which they will then broadcast online from 29—30 May.

A couple of weeks ago, Groundfloor Radio put a callout on Facebook for Adelaide locals to produce a DJ mix, live set or podcast and submit it for the Groundfloor Radiothon, celebrating underground electronic music in South Australia.

“It’s two days of Adelaide music broadcast on our website,” says Groundfloor Radio co-founder and postcode 5000 party-starter, Dan Gill.

“We use the term ‘radiothon’ in the sense of it being a marathon of music.”

Submissions are open now (but close this Thursday, 20 May, so get in quick) and must be 60 minutes long and formatted to MP3 320kbps. Participants must also include an image of themselves with some information about the music they’ve provided.

The brief for what the set should sound like, however, is free-ranging.

“We’re looking for people who are getting into it and have some music that they’re really passionate about,” Dan explains.

“We want to make sure that there’s equal opportunity present and unanimously welcomed so that everyone feels like they can contribute.

“Radio is great because it takes the pressure off demanding club situations, and provides people with an opportunity to develop outside of that constraint, outside of the intensity of that [environment].”

Groundfloor Radio is encouraging diverse pockets of the dance community – specifically female, gender-non-confirming individuals and people of colour – to participate and send in their 60 minutes.

Dan says cultivating non-male participation in the nightclub scene is something he’s been thinking about for a while now. It was a topic we discussed with him last year, when we looked into how new streaming platforms founded during lockdown were tackling gender diversity in their programming.

“We’ve obviously had a conversation about this before, and I guess [it’s] the lack of prevalence of minorities performing within the sphere of Adelaide clubs and venues and events, and that being a quite a significant issue that we need to tackle as a city,” he says.

Groundfloor Radio in conversation with 30/70. This picture: Matt Carter

It’s important to provide a platform, such as this radiothon, for beginners to explore their music in a “judgment-free space”, Dan says. But he’s also confident this roster of artists will function as a clear and diverse list of non-male DJs and musicians who can be paid to perform live in nightclubs or bars.

“It can bring to light the amount of people there is that venues can call on to perform at their parties and club nights and whatnot,” he says. “That can start to inform change if we can have a variety of new faces sharing very capable [music] and showing their talent as well.”

At the beginning of the year, Groundfloor Radio programmed the Cult Records stage at Adelaide Fringe hub, RCC. This curation consisted of a range of performances and public interviews with bands, such as rambunctious neo-soul jazz outfit 30/70 and psychedelic jazz-fusion quartet Mildlife. These conversations will be the basis of a soon-to-be-released zine published by Groundfloor, hitting the streets in May, Dan says.

Also through their RCC programming, Groundfloor brought in Nelya Valamanesh, a DJ and emerging filmmaker, to host a DJing workshop aimed at culturally and linguistically diverse communities in Adelaide. Dan hopes to use Groundfloor’s platform to continue to facilitate events like these.

“Electronic music is really important to the state,” he says.

“Any people who have an interest in underground music and interesting eclectic music should give it a go and share and send in a submission because, we’d love to see a lot of new faces contributing and have the kind of exciting depth of talent that we have in Adelaide on show.”

Groundfloor’s Radiothon lineup will drop on Tuesday, 25 May. Keep an eye out via their Facebook and Instagram page. Email your set to contact@groundfloor.live.