Usually when I don’t really understand the technical side of a track (which is to say whenever I listen to anything, ever) I can still point to a few musical touchstones to draw reference to. Not here though. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve failed to procure a coffee this morning or I just don’t have it within my vocabulary to explain just what this reminds me of / sounds like. Dancing about architure, and all that. The one thing I know is that for five and a half minutes this track doesn’t stop pulsing with energy. It isn’t surprising that the wave form looks like a slug because there’s no point at which those questing synths die down. Except, you know, the end of the song. The drum line is as unrelenting as the synth and helps retain intensity across the length of the record while the vocals frame questions above it all. Big tune.

You know what this dude can actually do? Write a song. That’s a damn sight more than a lot of Unearthed artists right now. The go-to move seems to be to pick a stylistic point of reference (current favourite seems to be Chairlift) and then sing tunes that are sonically similar. I use the word ‘tunes’ intentionally here because largely, they’re not songs. There’s not much meat on the bone when it comes to technical or structural songwriting. Conversely, there are the three songs I’ve heard from Bus Vipers. All three seem as though they would have been songs prior to the frills being added. There was no tinkering for the right sound to base the song around [probably], that all came after the fact [maybe] and that’s why when you’re listening to them you’re actually singing along to something [definitely] instead of simply thinking ‘this is nice’.

Largely the project of lone Canberra (soon to be sydney) man Daniel Ahern, Bus Vipers are still in what ‘we in the business’ like to call ‘early days’ but given what I just heard there’s no doubt in my mind that it’ll be a short formative period followed by a big ol’ economic boom. Also Daniel, if you don’t go with a Snakes On A Plane parody for your next Bus Viper’s videoclip I can’t even help you. It’s just destiny. I’m told there’s an EP in the works for the end of the year provided that there are enough yearning ears so help him/me/yourself make it happen by casting your likes thusward.

The new Valar song dropped yesterday to rapturous internet applause. Wait nope, the internet is an idiot and it didn’t even realise. That bloody internet, you know!? The band gently tapped me on the shoulder.

“Psssst. Tommy”.

“Yes?” I asked?

“Guess what we’ve got for you?” Go on guess.”

“Is it… the gift of caring for each other?”

“Nope, not that! We love that though! But it’s… diversity. We’ve all got all this diversity to show you!”

And so they did. They showed me all their diversity which isn’t any sort of code for their bits and pieces but the simplest way of saying that they’re going to put out an EP real soon that going to be a stylistic mixbag. A real “licorice allsorts” sort of affair. I’m really keen for this one. The three piece come five piece are making tunes that demand a greater audience than they currently receive so please please please take the time to hit go on the below player. This is the step forward in songwriting that I’ve been personally hoping Valar would take for some time and it’s gratifying to see them striding out of comfort zone and into a sharper space. Structurally impressive but also nice to see Blackwood’s vocals put to the test on a technical level when in the past we’ve seen drum and bass parts pushing boundaries but rarely risks taken vocally. And with explorative sounds come explorative ideas, with the two tracks we’ve heard demonstrating a direct line of conceptuality that moves from star to asteroid belt to dark space.

WordPress is trying to to tell me that both conceptuality and explorative aren’t real words. I don’t mind making up words in my posts as long as I know that I’m making up words. Give it a rest wordpress.

If you’re in Sydney and you’d like to catch them live they’re playing a small show with Tin Sparrow and Charlie Gordon via The Smallest Gig.

The mental pendulum has has been in motion for quite some time as I’ve thought upon the Hiatus set I caught the other night in support of Thundercat. It’s kind of testament to the strength of what I saw that I’ve not really thought twice about Thundercat since, all resources assigned to that little ol’ support set. I’ve dichotomised the live set and the recordings for some reason and I just can’t stop wondering which is stronger. At the show I kept thinking ‘ohhhh right, this is what they’re about’ but then I put on their records and suddenly this moment is better than the first. I don’t know and I guess it doesn’t matter because it doesn’t need to be relative and what I’m trying to say is that as a holistic act, Hiatus Kaiyote are worth committing to entirely, fully, indefinitely.

Sunday night was one of the best live sets I’ve seen in years. You’ve probably already seen them live and I’m preaching to the choir but at it’s earliest incarnation, Sound Doctrine was just a platform for me to punt my current tunes through your aural goal posts for guaranteed cred points and uhhhh… sports metaphors etc. That’s why I have to post this; because I really, really love it and nothing more. I’ve touched on Hiatus colláborateurs in posts about Kirkis and Silent Jay but I guess I’d kind of suspected you were all over Hiatus themselves and that may be the case. But if you’re not then this is my gift to you. I don’t pretend that I’m putting you in the know ahead of time here since this is a crew backed by the likes of Questlove and Badu themselves but that’s no matter, you and I aren’t about all that, right? Of course we aren’t.

I found myself leaning into my desktop as I listened to Andromeda, the first track from Laurence’s debut record William, Andromeda (though not the first song by that name we’ve shared together). I found myself leaning inward because the vocals have been levelled quite low and they’re delivered in an entirely vulnerable, quivering hush. It’s quite captivating even if it’s forced me to have my volume screamingly high and the bleeps and blips pulsing out of my office are likely doing our office junior’s head in, but that’s my divinely attributed right as a top-dog big-budget cash-money mega-hyphenated business-type. My high roller status appears heavily at odds with a record this grounded in humility though, so for the purposes of aural relationship I’m going to drop the pretense and recognise this for the rich and resonant expression that it is. Thematically it’s about the struggles involved in maintaining a relationship with someone suffering from mental illness and that content is lyrically present and underscored by a subtlety of sound and a serious attention to detail across the various soundscapes on the record. The layering and the mixed down vocals remind me a lot of Youth Lagoon’s Year of Hibernation. I’ve chosen two tracks to get you started but I really, really think you should listen to the whole record rather than these singular cuts.