The Rise And Fall Of The Middle East: 2008-2011

What prompts one of Australia’s most promising bands to call time on their career four years in? MATT SHEA takes a look at the meteoric rise and premature fall of Townsville’s The Middle East. Splendour photo by JUSTIN EDWARDS.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] Townsville, 2008. Two singer-songwriters, Rohin Jones and Jordan Ireland, convene a bunch of collaborators to record a self-titled debut. The result, The Recordings Of The Middle East, is passed around to a few dozen friends before the group go their separate ways. Ireland travels to Germany to became an au pair for a Sydney family, whilst Jones and the rest of The Middle East return to their day jobs and kicking around on Townsville’s tight-knit music circuit.

Nothing much happened for a while. On January 5, 2009, somebody signed the band – along with the songs ‘Blood’ and ‘Darkest Side’ – up to the triple j “Unearthed” website, but that was about it. That Unearthed page still exists; a brief snapshot in time of a band who admitted to being influenced by Bob Dylan and “Sufan (sic) Stevens”, and obviously didn’t have a clue what awaited them later that year. But within a couple of months triple j’s Zan Rowe, Vijay Khurana and Richard Kingsmill had all given ‘Blood’ four- or five-star ratings, the group’s music flipping about the blogosphere until it landed in the inboxes of Sydney indie imprint, Spunk Records.

The Middle East began to show up on the playlists of teenagers and 20-somethings around the country, and with Ireland having returned from overseas getting the band back together was the logical thing to do. But for The Middle East, a project that was only ever meant to be a one-gig proposition, it seemed the same sort of logic as having to haul yourself out of bed in the morning. So began two years of reluctance from one of Australia’s most promising groups.

Cut to the weekend just past and The Middle East are announcing their Splendour in the Grass performance to be their last ever. Nobody can quite believe it. Here was a band at the top of their game, with the table set for future success, and they were happy throwing it all away.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]

Any doubts were put to rest midweek when the band confirmed the news on their Facebook page. “We're ceasing,” the statement read. “I'm not sure if we'll make more music later on or not. We don't feel like playing anymore for a whole lot of reasons that I won't list here and I'm afraid if we continued any longer it would just be a moneygrab.”

That self-titled 2009 EP will remain the band’s artistic highpoint. Dominated in critical circles by the flowing, soulful ‘The Darkest Side’ and uncompromising catharsis of ‘Blood’, The Recordings of The Middle East also seemed to catch the band at a stylistic crossroads, the more conventional cuts balanced by a shifting post-rock found on ‘Lonely’ and ‘Beleriand’. It was arguably this mix of styles that made the band so engaging: the songs taken on their own were impressive, but it was how they came packed together that made The Middle East truly distinctive. They were that rare band that most could agree upon, and the sense of mystery surrounding their inner-workings – there were no sleeve credits besides basic recording information and next to nothing online about who played what – neatly curtailed the hype that was building around them.

But there was already a growing lack of enthusiasm emanating from within The Middle East. Press opportunities with the band were few and far between, and when they did happen they’d often end up being frustratingly short on any meaningful information. M+N briefly spoke to Jones in 2009 – ahead of a Spunk “Singles Club” tour with Leader Cheetah – he offered little, aside from the fact he was looking forward to “swimming in the ocean in every new town and meeting new people with different stories”. Around that time every fan you spoke to seemed to have a different opinion regarding the band’s live prowess, and as 2009 became 2010 word got around that they were having difficulty nailing down a debut long-player.

When 2011 finally rolled around and the hype machine geared up for The Middle East’s sophomore release the promo photos seemed to say it all, showing a band a cheap glass of champagne away from looking like a bunch of acquaintances at a 10-year reunion. When Rohin Jones did speak to the media about the forthcoming release – a task he seemed continually saddled with due to Ireland’s frequent trips abroad – he sounded like a man carrying a cross. “We’re not trying to conquer the scene and become this really super successful band,” he told M+N in late April, before ruminating that he “wanted to do other things with his life”.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]

When the album finally did arrive it turned out to be as cumbersome as its own syntax-challenged title. Officially billed as their debut – as if their first attempt was merely a false start – I Want That You Are Always Happy clocked in at over an hour and was laden with a slew of awkward and demanding tracks. After numerous spins it felt like the band – having placed themselves so far away from their sparkling EP – were being almost purposefully obtuse. Many publications eventually gave The Middle East the benefit of the doubt on the back of a collection of eerie, beautiful moments, but hindsight – even just a few months’ worth – is a handy thing to have when judging the true value of this album.

[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.] The Middle East - Land of The Bloody Unknown by theinsound

It was like The Middle East had done a Stone Roses, following up a fleet-footed, singular, self-titled debut with a technically fantastic but spiritually leaden second record. It didn’t help that Jones wasn’t exactly talking up the album, telling M+N, “I wouldn’t say I’m a massive fan of the album, to be honest.” In another interview with Junior Magazine Ireland offered a similar assessment: “It [the album] has been so longwinded and I think we were all a bit over it a while ago.” In a half-year already chock full of excellent local releases, The Middle East suddenly seemed surplus to requirements.

“‘The Recordings Of The Middle East’ is destined to become another ‘Grace’, belatedly discovered and played ad infinitum by one person at every party you’ll ever go to.”

And in that sense, the announcement at Splendour wasn’t so surprising. It perhaps felt like a callow decision – one that underestimated both the resplendence of their own music and the opportunity they’d been given to capitalise on it – but it also seemed packaged with a certain amount of relief, like Jones and Ireland can finally consign themselves to a life away from the spotlight that shined so intensely on their humble little band.

If the release of I Want That You Are Always Happy was one of the big news items of the first half of 2011, the demise of The Middle East themselves will certainly remain one of the major talking points of the second. That the band aren’t staying together is still unfathomable to some, and it does indeed feel like somebody has ripped out the second half of the story – both for those who were convinced that these guys were the second coming of Jesus Christ, and others who thought the band had somehow lucked into a fantastic EP. Who knows: The Middle East have reformed before, maybe they’ll do it again. But for now The Recordings Of The Middle East is destined to become another Grace, belatedly discovered and played ad infinitum by one person at every party you’ll ever go to.