For a long time after the Middle East ceased to be an active band, I tracked the movements of its various members. Not too closely, nothing too geographical, just a general eye cast over their respective projects to see who was doing what. Rohin only ever managed a song or two but one of those songs was a work of extreme merit and potentially even the one of the best songs of 2012. Bree played a bunch of instruments in Matt Corby’s band and released an EP and it seems like there might be an album on the way. Mark didn’t take too long to release his own full LP under the moniker of The Starry Field and by now he’s almost overdue for new music again but his time is split between engineering other people’s records and running his own label. It’s Jordan we’re here to talk about though because Jordan seems to have been the most prolific of the team since they called it a day. He released a solo record under the name Stolen Violin that was undeniably lovely and now it seems he’s a member of this here band Soda Eaves. It’s probably not a new development but I TOLD you, I’m no longer 100% across the bands projects since they’ve managed to remove their GPS trackers from their flesh (which is to say it certainly isn’t a new development since they’ve already released an entire nother record in 2013). Murray Darling is the record they released last week (thankfully available on wax too even!) and it’s only in listening to this that I remember how incumbent Jordan’s voice is in my memory, its roots having grown through my conscious into that thicker soil of the nostalgic subconscious. He’s always had a way of writing lyrics that were bodily and earthy, natural and coarse, speaking in language and sounds that felt more small town than tertiary which perfectly compliments the instrumentation on Murray Darling.

I wonder however if this is the product of his pen as my minor research has suggested that the project is primarily the work of Hot Palms guitarist Jake Core which is now making me question if that’s even Jordan’s voice and now I’m crying and confused and it’s 8:24pm on a Sunday night and I don’t know what to do. Anyway though, there’re stray violin parts and piano sections but it’s largely the acoustic and electric guitars that entangle Jordan’s (maybe) voice. I guess I’m a little bit sorry to Soda Eaves that I’ve framed this within the narrative of the Middle East because this record is a work that shouldn’t be in the shadow of another now defunct band but it’s the framework of my experience and they really were one of my great musical loves. So go into this knowing that there’s a vapour of that original Middle East threading through this record but take it as a new thing, the product of mostly new people and something to make its own memories and emotional connections. Listen to it while driving somewhere special or next to someone significant and embed it with your own context that marks it as a new beast because it’s both new and beautiful.

Prep your thickest goggles and don your protective visors because you’re in the presence of an intemperate face melter. Sydney’s Party Dozen may have just become my new favourite band and one of the first domestic records of 2016 to knock me flat on my ass without the sense of decency to offer a pillowed landing. At least I had the fortune of starting with ‘The Living Man’ (the first song from this Party Dozen two-tracker). It gave me time to incrementally aclimmatize myself to the palette of sound that Jonathan Boulet and Kirsty Tickle utilised here. Waves of guitar-sounding-synth or synth-sounding-guitar roll against cleverly dynamic drum parts and wild sax improvisation. By the end of the track the synth sounds have established themselves as guitars and don’t you feel like an absolute burke for ever confusing the two. But this is the start of our journey friends, this is where it begins. Now you’re entering the ‘Wide World’, a thundering bison of a track that threatens to trample you at its commencement then uhhhh… well then it tramples you, true to it’s omens. More distorted saxophone that’s also shed any clear sense of identity which I’ve realised is something of a production trope on these tracks. The two of them have taken traditional instruments and bent their sounds into new angles so that it’s never quite clear what’s what. Anywho, listen in order and then it’s of paramount importance that you text me with your opinions on this track. Hit me with your most informed cool thought, drop it square in my text-centre, share with me all the clever things you thought up in your cubical you worthless swine. Hell, these records gone and got me all jazzed up now, I better go.

‘Glow’ seems an appropriate title for a song that’s filled with synth noises and programmed beeps that seem to bloom with life and pulse rythmically across the song’s few minutes. Each signal rises from the flattened plane in slow gradient, pulling upward and then smoothing downward, not unlike (and I’m stretching here, but bear with me) the curvature of braille itself. Small undulations across a level surface that each hold meaning should you be willing to invest some time in the medium. Sheets of ambient sound are the bed from which the vocals and blips swell from and they’re sometimes solid, sometimes quavering with uncertainty. It’s a great a first step forward from Melbourne label Spirit Level who relaunched last week with news of Braille Face’s signing.

Bonus fact for my regular readers (if this is your first time here please look away, this is a members only fact): Urban dictionary taught me that braille face is someone with an intense pimple population and I for one am going to wield this term like a claymore going forward.

Trigger warning, if you are a person who is prone to #feelingthings then this song isn’t for you. Or maybe it is for you, I guess it depends on how open you are to the idea of weeping into your pillow tonight. ‘Maths and Engineering’ is lifted from an [as yet untitled] upcoming record soon to be released by Brisbane duo ROI. Barnaby Gickel and Matt Schrader have played intermittently with various Brisbane projects but under the moniker ROI they’re releasing a series of songs featuring a range of guest vocalists. There doesn’t seem to be any intention to leverage the brand of any of these vocalists because damned if I can find any reference to who is singing on this track. The vocal reminds me a little of Rohin from the Middle East and a lot of Grand Salvo but the underlying lyricism of the thing is the cincher. There’s very little subtext, just a plainly-spoken narrative that takes you on a journey through a suburbia that could be any of Brisbane, Melbourne or Sydney if he didn’t explicitly mention Birdee Num Nums and the Brisbane River. The cues used to establish the setting all stick perfectly in my nostalgic longing for simpler school years- that friend who was the first to have internet at home, inter-school athletics carnivals, the significance of a friend at school being an adopted child. Simple emotional reference points that weren’t battered by the constant onslaught to bring your life forward, to have things and to be things. I won’t speak to the story that weaves through these settings because it’s best received direct but I’ll say that it definitely put me back in my seat for a few minutes. Fingers crossed there’re more tracks as siginificant as this on the album because this is a very special record.

Streaming this one direct from Triple J Unearthed – shoutouts to the good people over there championing records like this one.

In October last year I bought an incredible cassette by an artist called Oliver White. It wasn’t an arbitrarily selected release as I came pre-loaded with a love of the delivering record label Healthy Tapes and of Swimming. This is to say, the Adelaide three piece band Swimming, not the aquatic activity. My love of watersports had absolutely no bearing on this purchase. I’d been living in Melbourne for around six months by this stage and the Great Ocean Road was an infrequent part of my lifestyle but nonetheless something that I’d participated in a few times. So with the full admission that I’m no Great Ocean Road deep alumni, I’d like to assert that this song captured the movement of its gentle curves, the salty smell of navigation by retracted window and the warm but crispy air of a Melbourne Spring. The whole EP feels just as momentary so I highly recommend your purchase of the digital record though sadly you’ve missed the boat on the physical edition. Before she was Oliver White, Angela Schilling’s work as part of the earlier mentioned Swimming was a source of much celebration here at Sound Doctrine Dot Website Dot Com. There’s a wonderful remix EP worth checking out and an entire hot damned LP so start here and then work your way backward.