Bands come up weird when they’re from the hinterland. But in a funny way, they come up the same. Take The Middle East, a band from the flint-tough dustbowl in north-west Australia, who sound, with their glockenspiel-to-acoustic-guitar band range, like another from the Iceland tundra, Sigur Rós.
In an unusual move from a band cool enough to be represented by those whetstones to the cutting edge, Toast, the leaf skeleton-soft vocals that spool out on their tracks deal with God. The band all comes from a staunch Pentecostal background in Townsville, their native city, and with clear ‘the Lord’-referencing tracks such as Blood they are pretty bare-chested about it.
The band’s singer Rohin tells me while on the road in Arizona: “I’ve abandoned myself to the fact that I’m not perfect, but God loves me anyway – the more I abandon myself to the fact that he’s God and I’m not, and that he loved me more than he hates me – the better I feel. Christ demonstrates all that pretty perfectly.”
So far they have toured with Doves, opened for Laura Marling and Mumford & Sons, and while the majority of their available music comes from a long 2007 EP called the Recordings of the Middle East, from which the previously mentioned single Blood was released as single in March on their label Chess.
They have been compared to Fleet Foxes and Grizzly Bear, who they also toured with in Australia. One critic said a song on the EP was like ‘a jellyfish – there’s not much going on inside it.’ Some of the band’s lesser output can indeed be distressingly ambient, and Rohin does mention that he is working on some film scores, for which this would fit. However there is a cobweb beauty to much of their music, which begins in the lullaby vocals and the intriguingly weird lyrics.
The band, which uses electric and acoustic guitar, drums, hand percussion, piano, glockenspiel and trumpet in their harmonies, are a seven piece, and comprise of Rohin, Jordan, Jack, Bree, Mikey, Mark, and Joe.
Rohin and Bree studied Music together at uni, apparently Bree is “pretty much the only reason I passed my degree. I’m a terrible student – I would straight copy what she did! The easiest possible way…”
This summer they travel to the UK for a series of shows, including Glastonbury, Somerset House and Latitude. They may here find a captive audience for the heavy Lord of the Rings references in their music – this is explained with a straight: “I’m a bit of a dweeb, and err on the side of nerd as well.” Like the assonance. The Middle East, making peace, not war in a zone near you soon.
Where: Townsville, Australia
Strange Fact: Their guilty pleasure is 70s Church music
Style: Ambient folk
Get three songs: Blood, Darkest Side, Fool’s Gold
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When you order frogs legs at a restaurant what do they do with the rest of the frog ? – Well surely they just throw the rest of the frog away and take it to the tip.
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