Jonathan Bree fans will be pleased to know that his fourth studio album 'After The Curtains Close’ is out now! You can purchase it in all formats including Limited Edition 180gram Red Vinyl here.
The album features guest lead vocalists including Britta Phillips (Luna, Dean and Britta), Princess Chelsea, Crystal Choi (Phoebe Rings). Below you can find a collection of singles Jonathan has been drip-feeding fans over the last year.
Jonathan Bree has released a surprise new single today 'Kiss My Lips' featuring label-mate Princess Chelsea on lead vocals.
Jonathan's talents for writing for the female lead have not been so obviously on display since his work with The Brunettes.
We could go on about how it sounds like a secretly dark 60s pop song reminiscent of The Shangri La's but instead we thought we'd share some fun facts.
The song was recorded during the recording sessions of his last album Sleepwalking, and has been in somewhat of a time capsule since 2017.
The music video for the song was recorded on the same day as the filming of break-out Youtube hit 'You're So Cool' on location at Selwyn College in Kohimarama with help from students with lighting and set design.
Both the 'Kiss My Lips' and 'You're So Cool' music videos feature a number of New Zealand musicians hidden beneath the masks see if you can find your favourite - we will neither confirm or deny !
'Kiss My Lips' is from Jonathan's upcoming album 'After The Curtains' close due for release on April 24th. Rumour has it there will be other featured guest vocalists in what is sure to be a very interesting release.
In the meantime head over to Jonathan's webstore to pre-order your copy of the album on limited red LP!
Our latest range of T-Shirts is now available via our new storefront on Teespring. We hope this will speed up delivery of orders and allow us to make a wider range of T-shirt designs available.
We've started off with the two latest Jonathan Bree designs:
Jonathan Bree has spent most of the year taking his band across Europe, the UK, and the US, even heading out further afield to new territories like South Korea and Mexico. For his new video, Jonathan Bree and "the family" took advantage of the fact that the band had a day off in the Ukraine to arrange a day of filming.
Yet, there was a great deal of last minute stress, when his drummer was held up due to factors beyond his control and couldn’t get to the Ukraine in time. This left Bree hurriedly training a local drummer on the day of their single show in the country and then getting the ring-in to appear in the video shoot the next day!
Fortunately the local show promoter helped ensure the rest of the shoot went off without a hitch - not only organising extra instruments to be delivered (including an upright piano), but also appearing in the video herself playing cello.
JONATHAN BREE AND "THE FAMILY" VISIT ABBEY ROAD STUDIOS
'Waiting On The Moment' examines a break-up by considering “the pain of revisiting places where a love you once knew had significance - in this case a karaoke bar.” Despite the subject matter, it’s an upbeat track with a slight 80s pop feel alongside Bree’s signature “bendy strings”, clicky bass, dulcitone and arpeggiated synth.
The song comes out at the start of another leg of show dates across the US and Europe, including slots at the Desert Daze and Levitation festivals in the US. We hope to make an announcement about Jonathan Bree's next album soon!
Jonathan Bree and the family have been touring for most of this year in support of his breakthrough album, Sleepwalking. Now Bree has announced two new legs of his international tour, which will take the family across Europe (in September) and then on to North America (in October and November)! He's also playing Desert Daze and Levitation festivals.
These shows will also include a couple of new songs that Bree has been working on, which should be released later in the year. Don't miss his live show which Time Out Australia called "mesmerizing" and which also got a rave review from Joy Zine (UK) who said it was "easily one of the best gigs I’ve seen in a very, very long time."
Scott Mannion's new album, Loving Echoes, came out at the beginning of June and has already garnered a great response in the press, both in his current home of Spain and in his birthplace of New Zealand.
The biggest newspaper/news-website in New Zealand ran a long interview with Mannion that explained why his new album took so long and how he ended up recording it in Spain. Legendary NZ music writer, Graham Reid also published both a glowing review and interview on his website. Mannion also went track-by-track through the album for the 13th Floor website and he also talked to Under The Radar about Lil Chief Records pivoting towards Europe as a main focus (though Jonathan Bree also has a huge following in North America).
Radio stations across New Zealand also did pieces on the album, including Hauraki, Radio One, and RDU. Meanwhile, the state radio broadcaster ran an extended interview and gave it a glowing review on two of its shows - in the Song Crush segment Mannion's song 'Your Kinda Love' was highlighted with the host saying it "shows off Scott’s ear for a great pop melody", while reviewer Grant Smithies said the album was filled with "fascinating songs that look at relationships from unexpected angles."
Meanwhile in Spain, Beat Valencia interviewed Mannion
and said they could hear in his music "echoes ranging from Brian Wilson
and the Brill Building tradition to the most delicate indie of recent
times" (translated). Early on, he also received great coverage in both the print and online versions of popular magazine, Ruta66. He was also interviewed by Valenga (a music blog from Valencia) and told them how living in Chelva influenced his music (for example, his decision to include a recording from a procession in San Antón on the album).
Overall it's been a great response from two very different countries on opposite sides of the world, so hopefully the word of Mannion's music continues to spread across the world, especially with his single 'Your Kinda Love' now at half-a-million streams on Spotify alone!
Over a decade ago, Scott Mannion's last group The Tokey Tones came to an end, despite adoring write-ups in the New Zealand music press and a feature in local critic Grant Smithies book of best local albums. Now, after a series of false-starts in different cities across the world, Mannion has returned with his sophomore work, Loving Echoes.
Cover painting by Ben Lustenhouwer
Scott Mannion is a co-founder of Lil' Chief Records (Jonathan Bree, Princess Chelsea, the Ruby Suns) but is now living and recording in a small medieval town called Chelva, in the mountains outside of Valencia, Spain. A cult figure in the New Zealand alternative music canon, Loving Echoes is his first release in 15 years.
Scott Mannion won the hearts of critics in New Zealand with his first release in 2003 - two albums released simultaneously Caterpillar and Butterfly as part of the duo, the Tokey Tones, with Li-Ming Hu. Local critic, Graham Reid wrote that the albums were "endlessly rewarding over time. The music itself has a sense of wonder and discovery, reinforced by seductive, often elementally simple, lyrics."
Mannion's live band featured other musicians like Jonathan Bree and Ryan McPhun (The Ruby Suns), both of whom went on to sign to Sub Pop Records. Meanwhile, Mannion's own career was stalled by ill health, moves between countries, the break-up of a long-term relationship, and a sudden decision five years into the process to scrap all his former work and start over (something that would happen more than once), driven by a self-described 'perfectionism to the point of mental illness.'
But now his follow-up is finally here! The album’s 10 tracks chronicle the timeline of an ill-fated relationship. An older more weary brother to the Tokey Tones music, Loving Echoes is delicate, fragmented and painstakingly arranged. It is bold and ambitious like anything from obvious hero Brian Wilson but at the same time understated (think Young Marble Giants) with the tenderness and fragility of Sparklehorse.
Recorded between Chelva, Auckland, Oslo and Wales, many of Scott's old friends contributed. Ryan McPhun co-produced, Jonathan Bree provided bass lines, former Tokey Tones collaborator Li-Ming Hu contributed some keyboards, while Lawrence Arabia and Princess Chelsea contributed backing vocals and more. He also brought in some new Spanish collaborators including a string section, French Horn player and Catalan musician Clara Viñals, who duets with Scott on Somebody Else’s Dream and Your Kinda Love.
Loving Echoes will be released worldwide on June 7th - digitally, on limited edition 180g cream coloured vinyl and as a CD with 16 page booklet.
Last year Mannion also returned to the live stage - playing New Zealand's answer to Austin City Limits (Auckland City Limits). Recently he played to a sold out venue in Barcelona and he will soon be announcing a new run of shows, starting in early June playing with Lawrence Arabia in Barcelona and Valencia.
In the meantime, check out the music video for the first single off the album, Your Kinda Love, which has already racked up half-a-million streams between the various streaming platforms:
Loving Echoes track listing:
01 Smoke
02 Be Your Mine
03 Do It For You
04 Not Exactly Deep
05 Juniper Tree
06 Somebody Else's Dream (feat. Clara Viñals)
07 You Are the Substance That I Can't Live Without
08 We Should Never Forget How This Started
09 Your Kinda Love (feat. Clara Viñals)
10 9 Years
Jonathan Bree's live show has been receiving rave reviews across the world - including a recent piece in Time Out (Australia), whose reviewer was "mesmerized" by Jonathan Bree's "surreal and filmic" show at the Sydney Festival.
Bree and his five-piece band have now announced a worldwide tour, starting with dates in the US (including SXSW) and Mexico:
Before heading across Europe:
In the meantime, do check out his latest music video if you haven't seen it:
We signed The Eversons years ago. Their music was quirky and satirical, which roughly suited our sensibilities as a label.
When their song “Harlot” came along though, we unfortunately didn’t give it any thought at all, it was “just a B-side”, and when we started to receive complaints we initially tried to stay out of the fray. We soon realised however that the song was not one that we wanted to be associated with and, after talking with the band, we pulled the song. A statement was issued, which we now recognise as being somewhat evasive.
Between 2012 and 2013 some allegations about Mark surfaced, generally regarding the same incident - invariably from third parties and always denied by him. As a small label run by friends and musicians we had neither the tools nor the experience to get involved. We referred those making the allegations to the appropriate authorities because we never saw ourselves as being an arbiter of justice.
In the light of things that we as a scene and society have learnt in the #MeToo era, we now see our hands off approach was inadequate, and on reflection is something we are not proud of.
We are against sexism and sexual misconduct in any form and from now on we will be vigilant in holding our artists to these same principles. We are no longer prepared to give anyone the benefit of the doubt or abdicate our responsibilities. Where allegations arise we will listen carefully and respond appropriately.
Applying that approach, we find that we are no longer able to comfortably continue to distribute The Eversons while these issues are unresolved. We have made the arrangements for their catalogue to be taken down. In hindsight we wish we had done that years ago but we didn’t and we accept the responsibility for that inaction. We apologise unreservedly to anyone we have hurt.
Jonathan Bree (The Master of Misery) returns with an eerily creepy (but also deadpan funny) video for his new single "Boombox Serenade", which is taken from his forthcoming album Sleepwalking, due out on 8 June.
A hybrid of a Jane Austin novel and the iconic boombox scene from Say Anything (starring John Cusack) - the video shows our masked hero galloping in on
a trusty steed, wooing his love with a boombox under her window. An avante-garde structure for a pop song the
track itself stretches the boundaries musically by dropping half a tone
every two bars for about 45 seconds and then repeating itself three times, Jonathan Croons a surprisingly catchy melody over the top that ties it all together.
Jonathan
has also announced a European tour in August. His only performance to
date was at the Others Way Festival last year and was described as a
highlight of the evening. For those who missed it the set was captured
on film.
The shirt we've all been waiting for 'Jonathan Bree - You're So Cool' shirts with awesome design by Steven Rhodes. Available in multiple women and men sizes. Order yours today here
Following on from the popular "Your Kinda Love", Lil' Chief Records presents "Not Exactly Deep" - the second single from Scott Mannion of the Tokey Tones forthcoming solo album "Loving Echoes".
Written while Scott was living in Wales it was later recorded and produced by Scott and Ryan McPhun (of the Ruby Suns) over the course of 2 years between Auckland, Norway and Spain.
The video for Not Exactly Deep is shot on Super 8 and directed by Rosalía Hernández of The Urban Spaceman Productions. It was filmed in and around Chelva, a medieval Spanish mountain town where Scott now lives, and it features some mysterious characters decked out in costumes (made by Emily Zuch) chilling out near a 2,000 year old aqueduct.
Like 'Your Kinda Love', 'Not Exactly Deep' is a beautiful pop song, but it's strange fragmented production reminds me of a Beach Boys weird album track crossed with some of that BBC Radiophonic Workshop stuff, aka very cool.
Jonathan Bree has released a music video for new single Say You Love Me Too.
The video features the mysterious masked band tracking in the studio..........
'Say You Love Me Too' is the second single from Jonathan's third album 'Sleepwalking' due for release in March 2018. You can preorder a 7 inch featuring this song plus 'You're So Cool' exclusively from the Lil' Chief Webstore.
'Say You Love Me Too' is the the follow up single to the popular You're So Cool - and it's creepy video certainly seems to have made an impact. The track features guest vocals from Catalonian musician Clara Viñals (from Renaldo and Clara). Clara is one of four guest vocalists on the album - the other three remain a mystery, needless to say some interesting duets can be expected.
We're excited to announce we are pressing a limited run of 300 7-inches with double A sides You're So Cool / Say You Love Me Too. Preorders are advised preorder your copy here while stock lasts for shipping in December.
And stay tuned for another creepy video featuring the mysterious masked band.......
It's officially 15 years and one day... to the day that Lil' Chief released our first album 'The Brunettes - Holding Hands Feeding Ducks". To celebrate we have pressed it on vinyl - there are 150 copies hand numbered available from our webstore. The vinyl is blue and white splatter and looks amazing.
Lil' Chief was founded in 2002 by Jonathan Bree and Scott Mannion. They essentially founded the label to release their own albums - but it soon grew into a pop collective that has gone on to create some of the coolest albums of the last fifteen years.
Jonathan will be playing his first live show at Others Way Festival on Sep 1, with a twelve piece orchestrette (two members admittedly just groove around dancing the entire time).
Fans of the fourth Brunettes lineup class of 2003 will be pleased to see him and James Milne playing live together again.
You're So Cool is from Jonathan's forthcoming third album scheduled to drop in February 2018.
The Ruby Suns' latest album, Sprite Fountain, is a culmination of over a decade of making music for songwriter, Ryan McPhun. From the first track 'Waterslide', we get an indication of what is to come - propulsive off-kilter rhythms, sweet melodic vocals and trickles of psychedelic guitar. Ryan is a magpie of music, equally adept at swiping a pop synth sound as he is at incorporating a Club Tropicana shuffle, all while his upbringing in California is ever-present in his multi-layered vocal harmonies.
For the past few years, Ryan has been a resident of Norway, where he's created a new line-up of The Ruby Suns to play shows in Europe. Though he also takes time out to tour as drummer for Lawrence Arabia...
His new surroundings are evident on the album, with first single 'Pram Gang' capturing his trepidation at walking the streets as a stay-at-home dad while fast-speaking clusters of local mums crowd past (as he sings, 'I don't speak the language, I don't even try...'). Norway is also a clear inspiration on the wonderfully laidback track 'Blåhvalene' (what a chorus!), while we get a hint of his homelife on 'Tilt of His Hat' (with the lyric, 'let your mother sleep darling). Though he hasn't forgotten New Zealand, as is apparent on the quirky 'K Rd Woody' (about on a rough night on Auckland's Karangahape Road).
The album was recorded at a new studio that Ryan has set-up on the outskirts of Oslo, where he tracked live drums, percussion, and guitar. Yet, his interest in digital experimentation also remains and the album is rife with manipulated samples, effects, and programmed synths. The final mixes were done while Ryan was visiting Lil Chief owner, Scott Mannion (Tokey Tones), in Chelva, Spain and longtime collaborator Bevan Smith (Signer) then helped with the mixing/mastering (Smith has played live in The Ruby Suns since 2009 and joined the band for an NZ tour earlier this year).
The result is an album that sounds uniquely like The Ruby Suns that fans have grown to love over the last decade. Check out the links below to hear/read more!
2016 really has been a weird year. To mark the passing of it the Eversons have spent the last few weeks writing, recording and making a video for their first harebrained novelty single in ages. Check out 'Weird Year' on bandcamp, soundcloud and youtube
After a slight delay we are very happy to finally be releasing the Eversons second full length album "Stuck In New Zealand"
It's an eclectic mix of New Wave, 60s pop, and rock 'n’ roll with in your face psychedelic production Available now on LP, CD and all your favourite digital services...
Lil' Chief Records is a boutique New Zealand based indie pop record label and musical collective, formed in 2002, and releasing the best music in that genre from these here shores. Our HQ is in Auckland, a city built on a dormant volcanic field...
This blog is where a bunch of our artists will post stories, pictures, videos and mp3s. Join in and say hi!
