Rob Masterton is a fella you might know by virtue of his work under the name Super Magic Hats while Tim Fitz’s work under the name Tim Fitz has been a source of excellent left of centre indie-pop over the past, oh I dunno, four or five years or so. Today, the two names are in the one title. It’s with some amount of discipline that we’ve kept it to just the two names because, despite typically vocalizing his own songs, Fitz enlisted the vocal talents of Valar‘s James Blackwood and Husain. The track is a weirdly timed, strangely produced and startlingly earnest anthem of yearning. Then Super Magic Hats got ahold of the thing and stripped all those weird time parts out and shelled the song down to the pleading core in its vocal. A new beat and ever rising synth parts alienate that sentiment and the resulting thing is a little uncomfortable and plenty interesting. You can get the Kumori EP from Super Magic Hats here or Fitz’s most recent Goodhearts EP here or you can say to hell with them both and save your pennies for the forthcoming Strain Of Origin IV remix record that will contain this remix as well as glorious Lower Spectrum remix of Naps that you can hear below. That’s before I mention the involvement of Setec, Electric Sea Spider, Power Moves and a bucket of other cool young types – out December 1.

If you’re super keen you can even watch Tim Fitz perform on one of Sound Doctrine’s securely copyrighted Show & Tell sessions.

When I launched Sound Doctrine Show & Tell with a backyard session from Yon Yonson I had no idea that it would soon become my primary income stream. I’ve had corporate sponsorship offers, product placement opportunities, requests for celebrity cameos and hollywood studios wanting to get in on excitment, all because Andrew and Nathan smashed out last years best upbeat down track for Australia’s most popular music blog. A real rags to riches story, the sort of thing that you almost couldn’t make up. Almost.

I used all that first video hype to leverage a second Show & Tell offering, this time with Sydney’s finest. Yep, they said he’d never do it, but I convinced Tim Fitz Music himself to perform an acoustic rendition of his Triple J superhit Sour for an audience of three, four if you count the abandoned hospital we were in, which is silly – but we were in one. Soon due for demolition, we figured we’d quickly take the opportunity to immortalize the building with Tim Fitz’z ode to the greatest city on Australia’s East coast. In the absence of Tim’s multi-instrumental chicanery, the song feels a touch more sombre than its recorded counterpart and allowed a cleaner insight into the core of a Tim Fitz song.

Filmed by Matt Davis at Silent creative

It’s here, the one thing we’ve all been waiting for and the only thing that’s been worth waiting for in 2014. Take that everyone and everything! It’s the next Tim Fitz song and it’s all we hoped for and more. The only thing more exciting than this single is his historic return to twitter but that WILL NOT overshadow this news of music. This single works on so many levels. It works for people who really like Tim Fitz, it works for people who don’t yet like Tim Fitz but like the idea of coming to like Tim Fitz, it even works for anyone who wants to see a picture of Tim with some lemons in it. Citrus pals, we call that last group.

He is of course, a long time friend and a truly lovely human but don’t let that stop you from entering into a proper discourse with this song. If you’ve ever sat sober on a bench on Oxford Street and watched the foot traffic on a Thursday or Saturday night then this may speak to that experience. If you’ve ever succumbed to the sort of career or relationship relativism which gives birth to feelings of inadequacy and resentment then this could resonate. I hope I’m never so reductive as to prune a whole song down to fit into a twin sentence summary though, and there’s plenty more to be made of it. There’s lots individual lyrical nodes that could be analysed on their own but it’s a concept best received as one larger, rounder and more honest whole. I saw the guy play Brighton Up Bar supporting Jesse Davidson a week back and it was an outstanding sight and sound. He’s always had technical flourishes and inventive ways of reproducing his recordings live but last weekend’s set was the first where I’ve felt genuinely moved by one of his songs. His forthcoming EP benefits greatly from the more developed aspects of his songwriting but there are a few production flourishes on there that will reveal the classic Fitzfingerprints.

Memo to self: business idea, Tim Fitz branded fishfingers. Possibly in brand partnership with Woolworths or Aldi if desperate.

The worst mistake you could make today would be not further exploring his diverse back catalogue.

Hello friends, followers and family (divided into a clean 10-10-80 percent split), today I share you Tim Fitz’s most recent body of work which is actually his fourth EP. When did that happen? It was only after reading this most excellent mess + noise piece on Fitz (who I have never met and am now reviewing from an impartial and objective setting) that I realised how prolific an EP producer he is but if it took four EPs to get him to the point where he could accomplish this most recent endeavour then damnit Fitz, you did good son. As a complete work it’s superior to all he’s released prior and I think it’s because he’s wrinkled out some of the creases that kept showing up across his previous output.

Instead of feeling disjointed (technically, thematically) these six songs flow through like a river undammed. The sound palette has some uniformity and the record opens with a proper opener and ends with an proper ender. You know? Also, few artists can navigate between organic sound and electronic burst with the surefootedness that Fitz shows in The Wanderer (Fleet Foxes meets Animal Collective) and Fracture (my personal favourites).

He’s also reinforced the hook in songs like Hospital (and to a lesser extent Happiness Is Tugging At Your Heart) so that there’s a strong pop foundation over which he can apply the snap beeps and trills that typify a Fitz record. In terms of straight up songcraft, these are the best evidence.

This release takes itself more seriously. It’s always felt as though he didn’t see himself as a worthy contender when placed side by side next to, well, any other artist but there’s a sense of confidence and seriousness now that has been previously absent. There’s no technically impressive yet conceptually ridiculous outbursts (see Huhuhuhuhu) and again, I refer you to the resounding structural uniformity to this release as a whole.

That said, I just listened to his exceptional Beforetime EP (now see my best Aus releases of 2011) and I realise that he’s been mental-good all along, so uhhhh….

The new single from Tim fitz is reportedly definitely the herald of an album impending. Just quietly, but actually not that quietly as this is an unprotected public website, I’ve had the opportunity to listen to said album and it’s rife with experimental oddities and bizarro synth moments and all in all it’s just really endearing. There are some truly creative production choices, especially on the slower more ambient tracks which give more breathing space to both bassline and piano struts which are likely Fitz’s biggest strengths. For the moment though, you’ve just got this first taste with which to content yourself. It’s weird, it’s whacky, it’s euphoric and it’s more infectious than Ebola which is considered by many to be pretty infectious I reckon. Stream at it.

Tim Fitz will be performing in support of Oscar Key Sung & JONES Jnr. as part of the debut Sound Doctrine showcase (co-presented with Circular Key) at FBi Social on May 30. Not to be missed.