Tricky-finger Tim is the new name under which Tim Fitz has been operating the past few months, by virtue of his astounding piano chicanery and his unexpected decision to have it legally changed. It certainly sounds good though. Good and professional. Tricky-finger Tim. That’ll stick. Along with a fictional new name, Fitz has a legitimately new song and it sounds exactly as you’d expect for a Tim Fitz track, which is to say it sounds nothing like anything else he’s released.

At this point it isn’t really clear if the following is a strength or weakness but Timothy Fitz cannot make music of any consistency. Hold there, I’m not say that there are variances in quality, I’m saying that this business is hard to classificate (it’s a word, look it up). The only feature you may recognize is that of the piano part, which if you’ve listened to Fitz before (and you damn well better have since he’s 20% of what I post about) you’ll know is something of a staple. It adds a spectre of lucidity to a tune that would otherwise rumble like a queasy stomach.

No news on what’s next for Tim Fitz but if you haven’t already had a listen then take this chance to hear his award winning sophomore EP here. Almost ran with this when I couldn’t find a good press shot and still sort of thinking I should have.

Photo by Matt Weatherstone

It’s been a long time in the coming and we’ve all been a-wondering just what the hell it would sound like but here and now we have the debut recording for Rohin Jones. He’s now donned the mantle of R. L. Jones, which is suitably rootsy though perhaps too similar to Earl Jones for my liking. Jones has been playing tiny venues over the past year where he’s showcased his songwriting and withheld the falsetto that once made ladies go weak at the knees. The live set has affirmed him as the storyteller we always knew he was, but minus the pretty frills that drew so many to the Middle East.

This first recorded piece is titled ‘Everybody Wants To Be Your Friend’ and sees Adalita lending her vocals to the tune. It’s a Kurt Vile/Father John Misty cocktail which tastes a lot sweeter than what we’ve already imbibed. The record is due out next year but for the meantime this is more promising than I could have hoped.

Follow this link for a full run down on the whereabouts of the rest of the Middle East clan.

Interesting to note that music is one of very few things that can be positively described as moody. I’ve never been set up for a date with the line, “Yeah, she’s really moody and brooding, you’ll love it”. Additionally, I’ve never been set up for a date, but if I had and it was prefaced with that sort of comment, that’d be it for me.

I think that’s a pretty apt description of the Luchi EP you now find before you. Not dark, not brooding, just moody. It has many of the trappings of lilting folkcoustica but it’s bathed in low bit drum samples so odds on the thing probably was’t birthed in Justin Vernon’s barn. For a first offering it’s a sparkling effort. I’d like to hear a little more mix-up on the beats and less regularity to the way they’re looped but I’m not a demanding guy. And let’s be fair, even if I was, this is a bit of alright. There’s a good bout of diversity amongst the five tracks and can I just say something? Can we pause for a second? I want to thank Luchi for not including an interlude. People need to settle down with the interludes. You’ve put out a five track EP, how poor do you think my attention span is? As if eight minutes in I’m going to pause the record, sit there for forty five seconds of silence and think to myself, “Where’s the interlude on this thing? I NEED A MOMENT.”

From the looks of things they haven’t been a bastion of productivity these past few years. Formed in 2010, Luchi finally released their first EP in 2012 and when you think about this mathematically (and why wouldn’t you) you’ll realize that this means the band have only managed to release 0.2 tracks per month – a figure that becomes even more alarming when divided by the number of band members. The individual output of each musician is 0.05 songs per month over the past two and a half years. That’s barely half a song a year.

Truly worth a download though. Available gratis on bandcamp, though if you feel like paying a few dollars I strongly endorse it. See below for a graphic representation of payment options.

I’d be very interested to see them live and luckily that opportunity is at hand as they’re playing FBi Social on June 22.

Porcelain Raft is the name under which Mauro Remiddi labours, crafting and building beautiful soundscapes at will. On the back of what has truly been a long weekend I can think of no better palette cleanser than Porcelain Raft. Remiddi never rushes the ambient build present in so many songs on the record so that when one stops to think about the girth of sound at the end of the track it proves hard to pinpoint just when it got so thick. He must be a patient man, this Mauro Remiddi. Mostly you just need to hear this one song in particular, ‘Backwords’. I don’t want to do the album and injustice though, it’s pretty swell. It’s riddled with smart production choices from first to last and Remiddi’s plaintive voice is an absolute treat. I first heard the record when it was FBi’s album of the week sometime early this year and made the purchase. I recommend you do the same.

Porcelain Raft – Backwords

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Porcelain Raft – Unless You Speak From Your Heart

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

So you know how I hassled you to vote constantly and painfully, for this very blog to win the Pedestrian TV Blogster awards? Well, it went and won – because you went and voted. I think it ended up on about 195 votes which landed it around 6th out of the total 20 blogs that were shortlisted so you colletively bumped me into contention. There was a number of other criteria on which the decision was based but just as, if not more important than those was your voting. So this, in effect, is just a big thank you from my least cynical ventricle. Thank you voting but thanks for helping Sound Doctrine be a thing, when all it was first meant to be was a way for me to share music that I love. And I guess that’s still all it is but now a few more people are a part of it. Thanks also to the good folk at Pedestrian TV who put these things on. Writing a thank you post might make it seem like I’m blowing this out of proportion this is probably the only moment I’ll ever have on the soap box so let me savour it. I NEED THIS. If you want to know the few other folk that have helped out in other ways then have a look over here.

Now let’s celebrate with this ol’ chestnut.