This is a record I’m going to have to see live in the next few months because there’s a raw intensity to it normally reserved for guitar bands and my mate Aaron whose presence at any party is quite frankly unbearable and who despite constant reminders never remembers to bring his iphone charger with him and lives perpetually out of battery. NO YOU CAN’T USE MY PHONE AARON. The breaks on this record make for an industrial strength punch in the ear zones akin to an old favourite of mine called Phobiac who dropped an incredible EP in 2012 and then disappeared (reminder, email Phobiac). After A/Bing the two I’ve come to the realisation that it’s not crazy that a drum break would sound like a drum recording so there’s another Sound Doctrine exclusive. This is certainly a nice palette cleanser to the chill electronic music that I’m forever swimming in and might be the sort of thing that’s going to break through because after all, we’re all getting a little tired of listening to pretty, gentle electronic beats with a nice crooning vocal over the top of them. Those chill records are kind of like my friend Aaron though aren’t they, they don’t really have teeth. With Aaron it was an elective surgical decision but with the ol’ chilltronics, it’s really in the blood isn’t it. Anywho, this one has some teeth and there’s seemingly a big voice behind them which is also part of why I’d like to see it in its most live format. It’s a little buried in the mix but it’s in therrrreeeee. Get around it, there’s an EP coming I think.

Edward Vanzet has come through with something special this week, a track called ‘Everyday’ that’ll tap into that same section of your psyche that took so much pleasure in the washed out rythms of… Washed Out. It’s just energetic enough to be of some dancefloor worth but every element of production feels so filtered and muted so as to make it seem like you’re in a carpeted environment. It’s that muffled warmth that makes the heavily reverberated claps from 3:28 thunder out like a dropped saucepan in an empty carpark. That production change isn’t an isolated incident either as the song progresses forward with constantly evolving sounds and tones. The introduction has more hi-hats than Pharell but they’re sucked out through the tracks middle before returning with compliments from a beautifully maneuvered electric guitar. The vocals initially made me think of Kavinsky’s Nightcall but after a little further investigation, even those have been softened to accompany the enclosing record. The track is perfectly articulated which seems wildly impressive before you realise that the chap has a history of well developed ideas. Added below for your listening pleasure is ‘Lichen’, a record from two years ago now that’s more Bibio than Washed Out but just as lovely with its guitar melodies and agile instrumentation. I’m head over heels for this one, friends.

The EP arrives tomorrow, prep yourself.

Long gone are the days when us music industry fat cats could slide into a boozy four course lunch, have our assistants slip a nice pair of Bose studio cans onto our delicate ears (remember this was when Dre was a hip-hop producer, not an industry leading headphone technologist) and crack cannelloni over our coffees as we listened to the newest and greatest hot tracks from around the globe. Sure, I can still write a creative headline incorporating both the band’s name and their release title in a new and creative way*, but who even notices?

So, these days we scour the internet much like a regular person does, and then we just tell you what we think.

The Spunloves have just put out a new recording, two sides of one small piece of vinyl, it’s lazy and punchy in equal measures and that makes me feel so alive. Take the first two lines on the b-side Vomiting Up Flowers “Do you want to get stoned with me? But i don’t smoke these days…” That’s the dichotomy of the modern world, what you want and what you need almost never line up. So what you end up with is this uneven feeling, a sheen across your life like dew on a cold morning. The Spunloves are laughing at you as they sit on your lawn, shimmering in that morning dew.

Anyway, we promised you a cut and dried opinion, and we have an Abbot-esque reputation for always delivering on our promises, so here it is: I like the Spunloves new 7″. Their self-reflective wistfulness is backed up by an aggressive and primal edge in their sound, a moment where they come together and are aligned and pulsing together and then they loose it out again. An instant where you are lost in the image and then lose your train of thought.

So, don’t sleep on this, it has the Sound Doctrine seal of approval.

*headline removed by editor

First as Anonyme and now under his own name, Andrew Tuttle has long been making music of the most natural order, inextricable from place and time. Australia has a long history of this. A basketful of the countries most recognisable artists, from Archie Roach through Boomgates have hinged their creativity (consciously or otherwise) on placing their context within their music.

Tuttle’s new record Fantasy League differs in that it doesn’t rely on words to conjur the images, they’re embedded in the sounds. The record shifts in hazy textures. Whorls of guitar are overcome by droning rhythms, to be overtaken by thundering organs or fluttering electronic blips. Fantasy League is heat, it is the long summer, the break of the rain, humidity. The escape. Ideas are presented, developed like maths problems and then slowly disintegrated, or theatrically imperious-thundering across the soundscape, at others moments the hot wind flows through. Fantasy League is Australia in texture and feeling, without saying a thing.

The album is due out this month via Someone Good, an imprint of Lawrence English’s Room40 and you can cop it right here.

Here’s one from ten months ago because when you woke up this morning your first ponderance was surely “I wonder what songs from May last year I should listen to today”
‘Okay’ is the wind in your face as you stand on the Winter coast. It’s a moment that you’re remembering better than it actually was, the lens of retrospect filtering the past so that it appears to encompass all that you wish you had now. It’s too perfect, too picturesque, too gorgeous, because the memory has deteriorated and you’ve glossed over the coarse edges of how things were to end up with a tableau more of your rose-tinted imaginings than any real thing that you’ve experienced. That’s the magic of a song of the kind that Tracy has made. It’s an entirely recontextualizing experience and I can’t wait to see what’s next from the Adelaide native.