Nite Guise is a two piece from Sydney featuring Mark Holland and some other guy, probably his younger brother I reckon, or maybe a son from an early highschool relationship. We can’t possibly know but even if it’s not a blood relative I’m 100% that they get on pretty well because this song sounds like a LOT of fun and it’s weird to imagine two people making this jam and not being pretty positive the whole way through it, so I’m not gonna. The beating heart of the song is a series of syllabic howls, boomed into the air through litres of reverb and the guitar lick that introduces the chorus may even be as fun as that Liam Finn tone from a few months ago. Reminds me of Unit era Regurgitator and Japandroids. In fact that’s a pretty decent reference for the whole song, let’s run with that. Any song that declares its arrival with “Here we go, the beginning is now” is gonna work for me I think. Even DMA’s can almost get away with their “Chorus Now!”

Yon Yonson was a two piece until recently, a format that had room for Nathan Saad and Andrew Kuo but live band performer Rick Scully couldn’t really fit. There wasn’t enough space in the band and unless the duo had a sudden breakthrough hit, they were never going to afford the renovations necessary to accomodate for Scully’s immeasurable musical girth. I think they must have crowdfunded the thing or something but all of a sudden they had room and now they’ve crammed him into the band, sort of up the back a bit but definitely right in there. If you’re not in the know, Scully’s live role is ‘knob-tweaker’ so everytime you hear a sample or a doorbell or something, that’s him. His presence in the recorded product is very clear here on what is probably his first track as an official member of the band and ‘Water’ sounds polished as all hell. This is the second single from what is likely to be a diverse LP coming either at the end of this year (fingers crossed) or at the start of next.

My monthly if-I-get-around-to-it Mixtape of exclusively Australian songs is called Postcards From Home and it usually lives on the Sound Doctrine facebook or over at the Tapes section of this blog but that’s all about to change. I’ve made a decision to post each and every one of them right here on the blog and even though I don’t have board’s approval yet I’m confident it’ll get through when I bring it up at the AGM in November. I can say for certain-like that this is a positive change that will result in increased financial growth and massive team synergy as well as at least (and indeed at most) one new post featuring a mixtape each month.

This very special October edition is the only one I’ll be releasing this year during the month of October and showcases some crackers. Foreign/National cover the Harpoons, Leisure Suite live up to their name and Medium Punch collaborates for the second time with vocalist Matt On The Moon. Electronic pearls from Flash Forest, Super Magic Hats, River Yarra and HOWL run a perfect counterpoint to Peter Bibby and the Harry Heart Chrysalis. Blair De Milo gets a track on here after he nailed that UV Boi collaboration and Brighter Later rides tandem with Lower Spectrum on their first new track since 2013’s The Wolves.

Some new signings in here to sit sweet on your palate in the form of Cabana whose first ever track is out through Pilerats Records. Similarly Spirit Faces has debuted his first track through Sydney record label TEEF, a company that people are already calling “merciless”, “a lot of fun” and “a record label”. Pretty cool right? Must have been started by one heck of a gnarly dude.

A few months back I asked, on the Sound Doctrine facebook, what my loyal and lovely constituent thought the best song of the year to be. I put forward Dick Diver’s New Name Blues as a very possible candidate and now October deep, I don’t think that’s changed. My number two spot however, may have just been filled by the one and only Peter Bibby. I am very [very] privileged to have listened to the album roughs of this forthcoming Bibby record and I [very] promise you it’s that it is one of the more valuable records of the year and that Bibby is one of the key prospects of Australian music over the next decade. I sat with my buddy James on Thursday of night last week listening to Nick Cave and wondering if Australian music [consumption] would ever be as open to storytelling as it once was so as to allow for future Nick Caves. Courtney Barnett is a damn promising prospect and something that offers a counter discourse to the hook laden, production focused Oz music success stories of the past few years and it’s going to be a ride as we watch and see if she can establish a similar cult following as our man Cave. I don’t want to put Bibby next to Barnett simply because they both have an Australian drawl and write songs from personal experience (I haven’t read anything on Bibby before but I’ve no doubt the comparison is often made) so we’ll leave CB back there and just talk about this damn song. It’s no secret that Bibby loves a beverage (his band is The Bottles Of Confidence) and here on this track he sings about his girl’s desire to see him extricated from the habit. Seemingly his love of sauce is as uncompromising as his songwriting, so sayeth that last line but I’ll let you get to that yourself. It’s hard to focus on any one lyric when you’re tapping a vein this rich. It doesn’t have the social gravitas of New Name Blues but it’s real life, listen to it over and over and just ingest the thing.

She loves my soul but she hates my drinking

If you haven’t before, take a moment to listen to Medicine. There’s not a whole lot online from Bibby still but plenty on the cusp. If the guy can retain his sense of self while continuing to write new and similarly captivating songs, the sky’s the limit.* For bonus viewing and reading, watch a live video of Bibby performing Medicine and read his pick for ‘Best Song of 2013′ as part of the Sound Doctrine 2013 wrap-up.

*Although more likely 8-10 thousand record sales is the limit, unless commercial station directors drunkenly add him rotation sometime over the next decade. Record sales tho, who needs ‘em.