Historically Sound Doctrine has lived under the same philosophy as the great thinker John West who is objectively the best by virtue of the fish he rejects. Similarly, it’s the songs that Sound Doc rejects that make Sound Doc… well, not the worst. I don’t write about a whole bunch of songs because they aren’t particularly interesting, even if they’re making waves or critically accepted. But this top 20 list, this was a tough one. I had to omit a whole lot of songs that  I really didn’t want to, songs that are more than worthy of their own end of year list placement. The process hurt my soul. So here they are, these are the twenty. No criteria, just the tracks that caught me off guard in 2018.

[editors note: I completely forgot about Middle Kids’ ‘Bought It’ when writing this list. Please include it in your mind.

1. Savour The Rations
Thank The Lord

Having lived with Kwame’s EP for a few months by the time this track dropped, I thought I’d heard his best in 2018 already. Little did I know that partnering him up with some of his best and closest would give birth to the best Australian hip-hop track of the year. Kwame’s verse goes harder than diamond but the real MVP of this track is the production. Wait, that’s ALSO Kwame? Well. Ok, the man’s a genius. But what I love about this is that while Kwame is a known quantity, all four MCs bring serious heat with their verses and no one rapper stands above the others. Domba sounds effortless, Gibrillah hits you with venom while Raj Mahal has some of the best bars on the track delivered with explosive energy. They move in and out seemlessly. It seems only fitting that in a year where hip-hop made monumental strides forward, the best Australian song of the year would come outta that world.

 

2. Annie Hamilton
Fade

This song ties my guts into knots everytime I hear it. It’s the sonic representation of how hard it can be to move forward after relationship breakdown. “They say that it will fade but I’m still waiting…”
It’s vulnerable and timid but it’s also a massive body and sound that tosses you in the tumble dryer with all your neurotic angst. It’s a noisy, messy scribble of emotions that builds and builds before stripping everything back to just Annie’s voice. This is the only track that Annie released this year and I’m almost scared for her going forward because how do you back this up? I’m not sure I can ever forget how this song made me feel the first time I heard it.

 

3. Ultracrush
Swimming

One of a number of acts on this list who broke into my consciousness with their first single this year, Ultracrush hit a homerun with their first swing. That’s a baseball reference by the way, I’m kinda sporty slash athletic, no big deal. This Sydney five-piece channeled Radio Dept., Beach House and all my favourite gentle jewels and came up with something that genuinely moved me. The references to specific locations made me feel nostalgic for experiences I’d never even had, so perfectly painted were the pictures. That sentimentality will typically move me from listener to fan but coupled with the structural elements like time changes and the gorgeous bassline? I’m a certified Stan. You’re looking at my third favourite song of the year right here.

 

4. Breathe.
Are You All Good?

In 2015, the end came early for Modular signed trio Movement. They’d promised a record in the works that sadly never came and in the silence since, very little has been offered. Three years later, the band’s primary beatmaker Sean returns with a new a project, partnered with Andrew from Sydney’s The Tapes. Their first record is this, ‘Are You All Good’, a slow-motion lava lamp pulsing with hypnotic colour and rhythm. I’ve never really known who this vocalist is but I hope they get a decent chunk of royalties out of this track because they certainly helped carry the load on this mighty record.

 

5. Kwame
Wow

This was the track that saw Kwame break the eff out in 2018. In the time since he took out the J Award for Unearthed Artist of the Year, opened up Splendour, nailed Like A Version, toured nationally with Peking Duk, Vera Blue, Tkay Maidza and yet none of those things define him. He strode through the year achieving endlessly on his own terms and when labels, publishers and industry types came along, Kwame didn’t move. He just kept doing what he did. This track is the best expression of that singular vision and the vivacious positivity that coats him like an aura in every interaction. Big song and a big moment for an extremely big boy.

 

6. HAIRCARE
Blinding Cordoned States

The thing I love about HAIRCARE, which is to say one of the many things I love about HAIRCARE, is that they’re knee deep in that lo-fi guitar band aesthetic but somehow it never comes at any sonic cost. There’s no shortage of guitar artists treat lo-fi interchangeably with ‘recorded badly’ but not so with ‘Blinding Cordoned States’ which sounds both lo-fi and glorious. It just feels like it’s been recorded on tape, even though it almost certainly hasn’t. The four piece drew in elements of The Walkmen, The Strokes, UMO and fellow Perth pals Methyl Ethel to create something that stands quite on its own in Australia in 2018.

 

7. Nardean
Nothing Matters

Earlier this year Sydney genius Anatole told me that his former housemate woke up one day and decided she wanted to be a rapper and frankly that sounded terrible. That same day I looked her up on Unearthed and frankly she, Nardean, sounded wonderful. ‘Nothing Matters’ was the introduction and it showed us some of the most potent potions of Nardean’s apothecary. Her lyricism is the most immediate, shining through in blinding colour on this posi-nihilist anthem but also: she can rap and she can sing, we found that out real fast. Nothing Matters was a perfect first handshake and while it was the best track on the album that was to follow, there was plenty more on there of merit.

 

8. Crowd Amulet
Goodnight

If Zach Braff is still making films can someone send this to him immediately? crowd Amulet came through for me in a big way in 2018, as one of the few acts that managed to fill the Tallest Man sized hole in my heart which has been a medical issue since indie-folk went the way of Malcom Turnbull. Its gorgeous, instrospective lo-fi acoustica that’ll have you wallowing in your long term regrets. For real though, don’t listen to this one if you’re prone to sad song melancholy.

 

9. Tram Cops
LA

Tram Cops is a project that has always cast serious aspersions on typical song structures. Where’s the chorus? Why is the outro eleven minutes long? This is one of the less coherent picks for the list and it undoubtedly springs from a long-standing affection for the music of Michael Vince Moin. Here he hits us with something between one of the quieter Kurt Vile tracks (think Blackberry Song) and Mac Demarco’s older, weirder records. His virtuoso guitar playing spills through the middle of the track before things pare back to their opening amble. It’s a beautiful, positive single from the record and it stands stoic against some of the albums more melancholy tendencies.

 

10.Charlie Collins
Wish You Were Here

Like Annie Hamilton, Charlie Collins chose 2018 as the year she’d strike out on her own. She left behind Tigertown, the indie-pop five piece she’d fronted for the past… I dunno, seven years maybe? What must have felt like a tough decision at the start of this year fairly immediately proved itself a masterstroke. From the ashes of Tigertown came Charlie’s solo project and this was the first song she released. It arrived with the sort of assurance that only seven years of recording and touring can offer and a clarity borne out of making the music influenced by that which Charlie grew up on.

 

11. Danny Barwick
Milkolka

His first EP was four tracks of pure piano weirdness by the name of Distance. the Highlight moment on the release was the beautiful ’Flickering‘ and he’s back just before the years end with his best offering yet in the form of Milkolka. His strange, beautiful vocal and typically lovely piano lines are the opening elements but it spins dissolved into twisted, sinister synth buzzes that feel as though they presuppose true madness. It’s dark and beautiful, true to form for DB.

 

12. CXLOE
Show You

anyone who had worked within the 40 square meters of space affectionately known as the pod, within triple j, will know that only do i rate this song very highly but i am also truly adept at singing it. i cant hit the high notes, the vocoder bits, i can sing the synth parts and i can beatbox the percussion. This song is my bitch. Or maybe I’m this songs bitch since my body has ab invontuary and immediate response when its played. CXLOE has dropped a brace of singles prior to this but this was where she went all out on us. CXLOE just has hooks out the eyeballs and the voice to do them justice and if shes not australia’s next great pop royal then i will consume my hat

 

13. Squaring Circles
Anima

This was the first track that Squaring Circles released in 2018 and indeed in any year, ever. Now if you’re feeling like a full blown opium den is your aesthetic but you’re not ready to commit to the lifestyle then plug this into your ear folicals. Also get them trimmed, they’re gross. Its not technically instrumental but it’s not at all lyrical. Anima is well named in that it feels as if it exists only at a beastial canter. It’s instinctual and energetic but full of nuance amidst the waves of sound. Squaring Circles knocked this out of the park.

 

14. Bilby
Polar

Billy found himself in the unenviable position of having released a dynamite EP already in 2018 and pressured to follow it up with something just as strong. He acquitted himself well with his second full-length Shade and though not a single, Polar was arguably the best track on there. The bass kicks just right and Bilby leans into the vocal melody which is lowkey his strongest attribute. He’s not gonna get the same props that we’re seeing offered to the current avante-garde of Australian hip-hop but make no mistake, Bilby is bushbashing his own creative path.

 

15. Micra
Child Grows Old

The combined talented of producer Robbie Cain and vocalist YSKA (Ivana Kay) is something to behold. Naturally, the two met at a UMO concert and the shared vision has been apparent ever since, showcased for the first time in the form of ‘Child Grows Old’. It’s full of whispered, atmospheric vocals that glide over Robbie’s instrumental production like the two had never known separation. Twenny-nineteen promises to be extremely big for this duo.

 

16. Jack Grace
Owe U One

This is a boy who possesses a voice that can quite simply resurrect the dead so when I say that this is the best vocal performance he’s ever turned in, I offer it with extreme gravity. It’s not his most dynamically produced track because that ain’t what this is about. This is Jack Grace with no frills, just his exposed nerves on display. There’s no crescendo or exultant ending, just a few gentle vocal layers added throughout and a chordal resolution that feels so right.

 

17. Minorfauna
2B

There was a moment a few years back when wonky alt-R&B was the flavour of the moment. Oscar Key Sung and Fortunes were the torchbearers but it there’s been a gap in the market for a minute. Enter Minorfauna the name by which Abbey Henson and Kyle Setch announced themselves in 2018′. Not a reference to objectively the best lead pencil graphite grading but in fact part of the ‘We were meant 2B’ refrain, 2B is a song where the production is given as much voice as the sung lyrics. There’s a clever call and return between the two that gives birth to a musical dialogue that I wasn’t quite expecting the first time I heard it. Stunning, though.

 

18. Kllo
Potential
This is, in my powerful opinion (impo) a song about knowing that you need to end a relationship despite wanting it to work so badly. “You make it hard, you’re so good to me it hurts…” is the refrain that Chloe Kaul comes back to across these three and a half minutes. The other half of the duo is Simon Lam and he keeps the percussion simple letting the keys and careful synths in the background hold the ground. I’ve found that historically Kllo records have been technically precise but lacked any significant pathos so it’s nice to finally have ‘em hitting you in the motes.

 

19. Rat!Hammock
June

Fourscore and eleventeen years ago I promised myself that I’d never write about any song that contained the lyrics ‘woof woof woof’. Today, I shattered that promise into a million dogfaced pieces. I’d be lying if I said that I loved this song as immediately as most of the other tracks on his list but once it took root in my dome, it stayed. It’s a chorus melody that never quits and a song that feels so specifically domestic and homely as if I’ve known its parents all my life. Rat!Hammock crashed into their next phase on this one and if the next single is two thirds as good, they’ll continue to rise like a heated balloon. Viva la Rodent hammock.

 

20. Pat Carroll
Conditions

Naysayers will argue that a list of the best songs of the year shouldn’t include a track that does away with the structural idea of a song entirely, but let me ask those same naysayers this: why you gotta naysay so often? Can’t you just enjoy this blossoming, swelling groove as it adds layer upon layer to itself over the course of its eight minutes? Will not you do this one damn thing for me? If you’ve never really got Jon Hopkins or Rival Consoles then there’s not much point clicking play below but if either of those two get you’re blood thick then we’re on here.