Guerre has never pushed my pulse past its impressive 40bpm resting rate and so I’ve never felt driven to give any real airtime (read blogspace) to his tunes. Potentially I’ve been coming at these from the wrong direction or maybe my current listening habits have better positioned me to take an interest in what he’s laying down. One way or another, I think this is the right time to be sharing these tracks. The last thing I want Sound Doctrine to be is a post-all-the-songs-as-soon-as-possible type affair. There are those out there whose sense of taste looks more like a shotgun blast than a well directed sniper round (I’ve been playing loads of Borderlands 2). There are a few blogs out there that are posting so much daily content that I’m forced to use the search function to find anything of value which basically means they’re of as help finding good music as google is.

Guerre is yet another feather in cap of Sydney imprint Yes Please whose roster grows more nourished with each passing week. Let’s start things off with ‘For Qwanisha’, the B-Side to recent single Rashad (Lose Pace) which you’ll also find below.

And -added bonus- here’s a thirty minute live cut pulled from a set he played a GoodGod about a month back. He’s pushing into the dark, dark territory of beatmakers like Shackleton. Big ol’ sinister bass.

I had ventricular love for Guy Brown before he did this here track with Flash Forest but this is the proverbial icing on the proverbial cake. It’s the straw that broke the camel’s back, it’s the bird in the hand, it’s the tip of the iceberg and it’s the bees knees. It’s just so many things, so many great things. It appears to have some significance to more than just myself as Triple J have said “YES! YES MAMMALS!”, declaring him the artist of the week for at least (and indeed, at most) the next seven days. It’s a mantle worthy of his shoulders as the track in question demonstrates an artistry of sound that I was previously unaware he possessed. I was well aware of a recumbent falsetto but this coupling points at more. The underlying beat is the handywork of Flash Forest, a Melbourne based producer whose own musics are most pleasing. Get familiar if you’re not already as amongs his repertoire there’s more buoyant swagger than every other minimalist Sydney beatmaker combined (WITHDRAWN).

I’ve written and rewritten this opening sentence and still, I can’t find an interesting or appropriate way to introduce you to the central thesis of this post; Boats Of Berlin have released something excellent. Their debut EP is as easy to get lost in as Jude Law’s eyes.

It wouldn’t take a debater of any real skill to demonstrate that there are similarities between Grizzly Bear and Boats, but then you’re not in the presence of such an orator so you’ll not hear that claim made. There’re certainly moments where the band’s attention to dynamic bid me cast my mind back to the first Fleet Foxes record too but these animal based comparisons do Boats of Berlin an injustice. They’re not derivative and they’re not going to be Unearth’s flavour of the month despite meriting the truest recognition. Nonetheless, across the EP’s five songs I hear nods to so many American bands that I’ve plenty of time for.

Boats Of Berlin – The Towers

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Dissonant chords are the benchtop upon which the vocals do their work. The understated snare and cymbal dare not pull attention away from the frontline but sit reasonable and calm beneath earlier mentioned chords, those same turning into languid runs as the motion builds. I should probably investigate the name of the vocalist because I get the sense that it’s going to become one of those Robin Pecknold/Jim James/Ben Bridwell/Ben Gibbard type situations where the vocalist makes a name for himself on the strength of his pipes before releasing the inevitable solo album. Full disclosure, I don’t know if that’s happened in the case of all those vocalists but they all come with the same singular strength of personality.

Boats Of Berlin – Lavender Farm

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Hard to know if it’s my favourite B.o.B release with bangers like this to contend with but it’s definitely up there. Cleverly priced by someone with an obvious history in sales, the EP is a mere $5.95. Veto your next wheatgrass infused boost juice and achieve true value for money.

I’ve come at this one from the rear (shhhhhhhhhh) ignoring what’s probably been a lucrative past year or so for Naysayer & Gilsun (6k fb likes has to mean something right?) and focusing on the collborative side of this affair. You see, this track features the vocals of boy wonder Simon Lam. Remember him? You should, he was in this post about I’lls’. Oh and this one about Nearly Oratorio too… and he worked on Mansion, Alaska post-production, so the dude knows his way around a good tune, that’s fairly clear. This fourth connection makes it four from four with Lam’s vocals tightening the cinch on a cruisy Naysayer & Gilsun joint.

Remember Jeremy Neale? He made music history earlier this year when he became the first Australian to use a saxophone as a sonic aphrodisiac. If you didn’t follow the above hyperlink then you might not already know that he’s a Brisbanite but more than that, you may be unaware that he’s previously been referred to as “Brisbane’s answer to all overseas bands”. The earlier mentioned saxophone was a function in of the year’s best singles. It was (and probably still is) called Darlin’ and by jove it was a mid-year diamond. Even on the back of Darlin’ however, I almost didn’t write about the next single as I have a most severe papercut on my index finger but also because Jeremy Neale is a Queenslander and they’re the natural foe of the NSWelshman. This is because they always beat us in the world state of rugby championships or something, and that’s real bad. Cut it out Jeremy/other Northmen. I don’t know if you realise this but rugby league football is of particular import to me and when the blue waratahs lose I get crazy down on myself, in much the same way I do when I’ve a painful papercut. And thus, we’ve come full circle and things return from whence they came – back to the single making credentials of Mister Neale. The new single is called ‘A Love Affair To Keep You There’ and look, it’s no Darlin’ but it’s still a tour de melody. I want to make mention of “sixties guitars” but I can’t think of another sentence that would sound so broad and uninformed so I’ll leave that right out. The guy can sing which is a significant one-up on most other garage-rock outfits. He can properly sing. I saw him at BIGSOUND a few months ago and despite a sound guy who obviously had the high and lofty goal of permanently rupturing my eardrums, it was still fairly obvious that the dude could wail. Lend your ears to this.

Also, heard the new Wiz Khalifa record today (I know, right?) and it featured the lyric “I’m the shit, literally”. Either I didn’t hear what I thought I heard or excrement is finally beginning to become a hip-hop feature.