Mat Ward

Newcastle punks Local Resident Failure are heavier than Clive Palmer, tighter than Gina Rinehart and have just dropped a motherlode of a debut album.

Most mainstream media journalists would kill to get one of their stories on the front page of The New York Times. But when that happened to the newspaper's Balkans correspondent in 2003, he was less than thrilled.

Californian hardcore punk band Death By Stereo have long been known for their politically charged lyrics, energising the scene with their debut If Looks Could Kill, I'd Watch You Die 13 years ago.

"We wanted to do everything on this album," Tjimba Possum-Burns tells Green Left Weekly. He is talking about Standing Strong, the aptly-titled second album by Yung Warriors.

Rapper Sky'high is a strong, Black woman surrounded by strong, Black women. "This is correct," she tells Green Left Weekly. "My family's full of strong, Black women." But when asked if there are any strong men in her family, she replies: "My father and brothers' father both passed away."

"Genius and lunatic are two sides of the same coin," says Mark Stewart. The post-punk pioneer is telling Green Left Weekly about "Method to The Madness", a song on his star-studded new CD, The Politics Of Envy.

On June 16, 2012, an all-female line-up of artists put on a Sydney gig to raise funds for women prisoners after funding for the charity Sisters Inside was cut by the Liberal state government in Queensland.

Fans of Aboriginal rapper Caper may see his failure to secure a record deal as a mystery. After all, he has made global news headlines, got his promo videos on national television, become a daytime radio favourite and even had an award-winning documentary made about him.

Anti-nuclear activist band The Super Raelene Brothers first made it into the pages of Green Left Weekly in 1995. But the duo, who have just dropped their latest atomic-bomb-atomising EP, Nuclear Kop, were making music way before then.

Unmasked By Nate Anderson Ars Technica, 107 pages What kind of a jerk would want to bring down WikiLeaks? The kind of socially inept and morally bankrupt arsehole that is Aaron Barr, CEO of internet security firm HBGary Federal. This book documents Barr's WikiLeaks-whacking work, apparently for the US government, that brought him into contact with the Julian Assange-supporting hacktivist group Anonymous. It eventually led to Barr's downfall.

Female acoustic duo Ngaratya have received advice from the best in the business in starting their musical journey.

Genre-bending musician Filastine says he has taken so much flak for being political in his music that these days he tries to be a little more innovative in getting his message across.