Monkey Records releases to date via SoundCloud - some tracks are brand new and some are from our back catalogue. Many are still available as free downloads!

Monkey Records Singles

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my favorite sounds in a playlist, with no special order..
newest additions at the end. a new volume every 101 tracks. this is the first volume.

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cloud.selector v.01

Soot the moon

Mellow List

Optimistic

NOCTURNAL is out now on Verve Records
Order on iTunes: http://smarturl.it/NocturnalDlxiTunes

YUNA SET TO RELEASE NEW ALBUM “NOCTURNAL” ON VERVE RECORDS ON OCTOBER 29

www.facebook.com/yunamusic (Over 1.5 Million Facebook Fans)
twitter.com/yunamusic (Over 900K Twitter Followers)

Los Angeles, Ca -- Breakthrough singer/songwriter Yuna is set to release her forthcoming new album “Nocturnal” on Verve Records on October 29.  The new album marks Yuna’s first full-length follow-up to her critically acclaimed self-titled debut from last year. “Nocturnal” features Yuna’s distinctive blend of organic pop, R&B soul and acoustic folk while also “digging deeper into her huge bag of pop star potential” (okayplayer.com).  The album marks a new chapter for the Malaysian-born artist who is earning plenty of comparisons to female vocalists such as Feist, Adele and Norah Jones. 
 
“Nocturnal” is a collection of eleven infectious new songs featuring the intoxicating single “Falling” produced by Robin Hannibal of the soul-pop group Rhye as well as the effervescent and uplifting track “Rescue” produced by Chris Braide.  Other album highlights include “I Wanna Go” produced by Michael Einziger of Incubus as well as the breezy “Come Back.”
 
Already recognized worldwide, 2012 served as YUNA’s breakout year in North America.  With her debut, Rolling Stone championed her as having, “certified indie cred and massive pop potential,” Complex Magazine called her “a deeply refreshing addition to America’s musical landscape” and The New York Times described her music as “gorgeous.” Yuna performed on national television, was a finalist for MTV Iggy’s “Best New Band In The World,” has had multiple songs featured in movies and on soundtracks, and played both Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo.  She recently appeared on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,” where she performed her duet with multi-platinum recording artist OWL CITY, “Shine Your Way.” 
 
North American tour dates will be announced shortly. 

Nocturnal

Falling

Not The Last©

Conjure is the dreamy debut single from New Zealand-based band Sleepywolf. Their self-titled album will be released early November.

Sleepy Wolf is a duo consisting of Karin Bettley (vocals) and Sam Benge (guitar and backing vocals). All the songs are written by Karin while Sam develops the musical arrangements. Their sound is made unique by Karin’s soulful and timeless voice as well as Sam’s rich textured guitar playing (he has a performance degree in classical guitar).

Sam is the guitarist on Eightfold's album "Bright Colours", also released on Monkey Records and Karin previously featured on the track "So Sweet" by Cinema 90.

Preorder the album here: http://monkeyrecords.bandcamp.com/album/sleepy-wolf

Conjure

The birds

Mayer Hawthorne & The County covers Lorde "Royals" as part of VEVO's Unexpected Covers.

Watch the video here: http://youtu.be/mtcR4BBet3k

Mayer Hawthorne - Vocals
Quentin Joseph - Drums
Joe Abrams - Bass
Quincy McCrary - Keys
Christian Wunderlich - Guitar

Royals

The first single from Twigs of Gold, the forthcoming album by Mamaku (formerly known as The Mamaku Project) is musically quirky and topically hot. Overtly denouncing the perils of capitalism, in its addiction to exponential growth, money and this, most often, through the exploitation of natural resources, Mardi Gras was leaked on the 23rd November 2013 as "Song for Vega", in direct support of the Greenpeace yacht Vega, stationed off the west coast of New Zealand in protest against deep sea oil drilling.

The tune's bouncy automated qualities, reminiscent of childhood casio keyboards and the famous omnichord, ornamented with tape-delayed tropical guitar riffs, carry a droll, close to deadpan, melody, the critical lyrics belied by loving tone of voice, lulling us, in a pseudo-joy, toward the final question: what are we leaving behind, as we go?

The official music video, created by Lupavision is a hypnotic art piece in motion, conjuring images of Le Petit Prince on his planet, only this time, rather than star-gazing or watering his flowers, he consumes his own planet... check it out here: youtu.be/2VkfySzAM8s

Album available for preorder now as CD or download here: http://monkeyrecords.bandcamp.com/album/twigs-of-gold

Mardis Gras

Since their inception in late 2005, Auckland band An Emerald City have strived for musical experimentation and liberation. Organic instrumentation and sounds of the east meet psychedelia with guitars and violin are at the centre of this original and unique 6 piece. From their debut self-titled ep.


Buy 

Qing Song

Getaway - Never Wanna See You Again

Lifted from Freddy Fudd Pucker's latest album Hourglass Wine, this song sees him in a more reflective mood as opposed to some of his faster foot stomping, thrash folk numbers. Available on vinyl or CD with a handmade 16 page zine hand-drawn by Freddy himself. The digital version also includes a pdf of the booklet to download. https://monkeyrecords.bandcamp.com/album/hourglass-wine

Freddy Fudd Pucker (Tom Young) is originally from a small city at the edge of the earth called Dunedin, New Zealand. However, he has spent the last five years or so touring the world, playing hundreds of shows across Australasia, the USA and Europe. The last two years have seen him based in Berlin, Germany, focusing on a nearly constant European tour schedule. Freddy looks at touring as a way of cultivating not only a growing and loyal fanbase but the very experiences and characters that make up his songs. 

Hourglass Wine is a 10 track offering of break-neck speed, emotive, folk songs. The bulk of the which revolve around the simultaneous, multi-instrumentation of one boy and his high-gain acoustic guitar, bass drum and voice. 

Lyrically, the songs seem to be born out of a desire to restructure and rebuild dialogues often over-simplified in mass media. When listening to the album one picks up the fury and disillusion Freddy perhaps feels in this modern age of disinformation that shapes conversations around issues such as ecological catastrophe and the politics of international migration. Freddy pleads with the listener, and perhaps with himself, to search for a sense of self-worth beyond simply that of a consumer within an unmerciful, global economic system. The heavy lyrical content of Freddy’s songs proves he is not afraid to explore complex ideas within his high-energy, strangely fun, punkrock influenced, folk music.
credits


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Black Honey

Batholemule Brixton is the first single off the highly anticipated forthcoming album "Henry Green and the Island of Tuliarts" by dream pop artist, John White. It is the fourth solo departure since 2000 for the Dunedin-based singer from his heavy popgaze bands Mëstar and the Blueness. 

To listen to a John White album is to succumb to a dream world, both in terms of the fantastical themes and the ethereal textures he uses, and “Henry Green and the Island of Tuliarts” is no exception. Under a soundbed of lush string arrangements and gently strummed guitars, John’s softly delivered and ever so sweet vocal harmonies beguile and at times thrill. Alternating with the exquisite chamber folk arrangements of the title track and others such as Batholemule Brixton and Noneoir, are more trad. influenced songs such as Whisky and Beer and Sally, the latter about the heartbreak and isolation of those sailing to New Zealand from the UK in the late 1800s. “Farewell Song” is written for a musician friend who passed away suddenly during the making of the album.
  
Several of the songs have a nautical theme, with characters overlapping in the stories. The story of Henry Green is about an imaginary island sinking into the rising ocean. The Tuliarts who have lived there peacefully for thousands of years are colonized by greedy pirates but ultimately saved by Henry. Another sailor who Henry Green later joined forces with, is Captain Sabotka, named after a young family member of John's. The stories of Captain Sabotka came about as made up bed-time stories involving a magic wizard crab whose magic only works when Sabotka's eyes are closed (a trick for getting him to sleep). Before each story, John would sing the theme song to introduce the story in the same notion as Postman Pat or Thomas the Tank Engine, resulting in the album version.

Many other magical creatures appear on the album: banshees, lady elves and lexaloffles to name a few. It should come as no surprise that John also designs retro style video games and has a knack for inventing fantastical worlds and creatures. The brightly coloued eyecatching cover of the album is also drawn by John.

"Henry Green and the Island of Tuliarts" was recorded and produced in Berlin by Monkey label boss Nigel Braddock in the summer of 2014 with a few overdubs added in August 2016 in Dunedin and Berlin. On the album, John plays viola, guitar, piano, percussion and a whisky bottle with special guest David Sills (Charity Children) featuring on cello. 

The album will be released October 7th 2016 on CD and through all the usual digital channels via Monkey Records.


Henry Green and the Island of Tuliarts

Buy album

Batholemule Brixton

Second single and title track from John White's recently released album, Henry Green and the Island of Tuliarts. 

To listen to a John White album is to succumb to a dream world, both in terms of the fantastical themes and the ethereal textures he uses, and “Henry Green and the Island of Tuliarts” is no exception. Under a soundbed of lush string arrangements and gently strummed guitars, John’s softly delivered and ever so sweet vocal harmonies beguile and at times thrill. Alternating with the exquisite string arrangements of the title track and others such as Batholemule Brixton and Noneoir, are more trad. influenced songs such as Whisky and Beer and Sally, the latter about the heartbreak and isolation of those sailing to New Zealand from the UK in the late 1800s. “Farewell Song” is written for a musician friend who passed away suddenly during the making of the album.

Several of the songs have a nautical theme, with characters overlapping in the stories. The story of Henry Green is about an imaginary island sinking into the rising ocean. The Tuliarts who have lived there peacefully for thousands of years are colonized by greedy pirates but ultimately saved by Henry. Another sailor who Henry Green later joined forces with, is Captain Sabotka, named after a young family member of John's. The stories of Captain Sabotka came about as made up bed-time stories involving a magic wizard crab whose magic only works when Sabotka's eyes are closed (a trick for getting him to sleep). Before each story, John would sing the theme song to introduce the story in the same notion as Postman Pat or Thomas the Tank Engine, resulting in the album version.

Many other magical creatures appear on the album: banshees, lady elves and lexaloffles to name a few. It should come as no surprise that John also designs retro style video games and has a knack for inventing fantastical worlds and creatures. The brightly coloured eyecatching cover of the album is also drawn by John.

"Henry Green and the Island of Tuliarts" was recorded and produced in Berlin by Monkey label boss Nigel Braddock in the summer of 2014 with a few overdubs added in August 2016 in Dunedin and Berlin. On the album, John plays viola, guitar, piano, percussion and a whisky bottle with special guest David Sills (Charity Children) featuring on cello.

Henry Green and the Tuliarts

Henry Green

In February, Dystopia finally release their long awaited second studio album, Rough Art of the Spiritual, eighteen years after their 2000 debut, The Wisdom of Insecurity. 

Featuring once again the exquisite poetry of Liz Maw set to music, the new album was fifteen years in the making with recording having begun in Auckland, New Zealand in 2002 and completed in Berlin in 2017. 

While the first album was a collaboration between Maw, Monkey Records founder Nigel Braddock on keyboards and Shinya Asakura on sitar and production, the new album is based around the trio of Maw, Braddock and guitarist Gerhard Lottermoser with a dozen other musicians featuring as guests. 

As on Dystopia's debut, Liz Maw’s poems take centre stage and her astute observations on life, death and the human condition are quietly compelling. Although her voice sometimes barely raises above a whisper, the listener is consistently drawn in by the rich imagery and hypnotic soundscapes which rise and fall and swirl around her. 

The music ranges freely in style from electronica to ambient to neoclassical to jazz to psychedelic rock and sometimes swells from a murmur to an apocalyptic crescendo. 

The striking artwork is a painting by Liz Maw who has gone on to become a highly successful visual artist in New Zealand.

Preorder the vinyl here: https://monkeyrecords.bandcamp.com/album/rough-art-of-the-spiritual

Rough Art of the Spritiual

Rough Art of the Spiritual

Order vinyl

Living for Summer

Not a Lemur is the first single from Broad Oak's debut album to be released mid 2018 here given a bass heavy remix by Berlin-based producer Boxroom Rebel.

Broad Oak aka Nigel Braddock, set up Monkey Records in 2000 to release a project he was working on and then got a bit distracted with running the label, producing and managing/touring with bands. His forthcoming debut album has been some twelve years in the making. 

Not a Lemur was originally recorded as a piano piece in 2006 one stormy night when he was living out at Karekare in New Zealand. 
In 2014, John White came to stay with him in Berlin (where Braddock is now based) and they recorded his Henry Green album. 

Although John White is well known in New Zealand as an indie folk/dream pop musician thanks to his band Mestar and his own solo albums, not many people know that he also raps as "Jumps". 

In between sessions working on his new album, White sang, rapped and played viola on a couple of tracks Braddock had been working on including Not a Lemur. Not long after that Brooke Singer, from French for Rabbits, was in town with her band and contributed some backing vocals. 

Says Braddock, " I really like John's stream of consciousness rap and silly word play. There's no posturing or macho nonsense. In fact he sometimes describes it as twee rap, which I believe is a genre he's invented. Despite the whimsy in this song though, at the heart of it there is a love story about a girl he met on a train in Berlin, although unfortunately he lost her number and never saw her again." 

Available on highly limited 12" vinyl or out now on all the usual digital platforms.

Not a Lemur (feat. Jumps) Boxroom Rebel remix

Natasha Robertson - Blush

Scoured over at :  http://ghettofunk.co.uk/spinforths-weekly-soundcloud-scour-65/ aaaaand http://hongkongpingpong.co.uk/spinforths-weekly-soundcloud-scour-190712 

Blogged aswell at : http://sunday-swing.com/2012/07/28/monetrik-swing-flirt/ & http://electro-swing.com/

Monetrik - Swing Flirt !

Alex Clare - Hummingbird (Live Unplugged)

http://www.inspiredandthesleep.com/ 
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http://inspiredandthesleep.bandcamp.com/ 
http://soundcloud.com/inspired-and-the-sleep
http://twitter.com/insprdandtheslp

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https://www.facebook.com/badpandarecords
https://www.twitter.com/badpandarecords

Inspired & The Sleep - Smiles For Adoption

Buy The Waiting Room OST here: 
https://williamryanfritch.bandcamp.com/album/the-waiting-room-original-motion-picture-soundtrack

Purchase Album

William Ryan Fritch - Coda

Thanks to Jean de la Fontaine, everybody now knows the difference between the oak and the reed. One boasts a certain virile majesty, a welcoming shade, an apparent strength and solidity. The other is seemingly so fragile, yet of a suppleness that allows it to bend without ever breaking. 

A symbol of the ability to endure everything and anything, of being able to stand fast during even the toughest of times, Roseaux (Reeds) is a musical project that is understated, yet impassioned and utterly compelling, born amidst the stormiest times yet seen in the annals of the recorded music industry. Roseaux is a collective that brings together a radio music scheduler (who’s also a DJ) and various musicians, artfully blending the skills of a guardian of musical knowledge and all the artistic feeling that characterizes a group of musicians who have each taken many different paths in the pursuit of their passion.

Roseaux began with Emile Omar, a music-lover with tastes as diverse as they are insatiable who sniffs out sounds without regard for the dictates of musical convention and genre. Some ten years ago his musical inquisitiveness led him to take on the management of Radio Nova’s record collection and then to play his part in finding the musical ingredients for the station’s celebrated ‘Grand Mix’ of innovative sounds. This gave him the opportunity to create Nova Tunes compilations and box sets – an eclectic essence of rare refinement drawn from a selection of new sounds and past musical wonders. Ever since his teenage years, Emile has also been adept at getting people on the dance floor – so adept, in fact, that he now DJs at themed evenings, delving into a repertoire of  classic soul, house, reggae, disco and tropical music. In this way Roseaux’s roots are firmly anchored in a cultural subsoil that comes straight from the racks of record dealers who specialize in a very unusual type of music – that which is able to delight the body and fire the soul at the same time. 

About 5 years ago Emile developed the desire to venture where it seemed that his status as a non-musician must surely bar him: the field of making music. 
Ever since Brian Eno knocked the ivory-tower idea of the existence of such a thing as musical legitimacy on the head, ever since Lee Perry, King Tubby and Tom Moulton turned the mixing table into an integral part of the creative process, ever since hip hop and electro DJs were able to demonstrate that creativity could be channelled through turntables and samplers in a kind of musical collage, the definition of what it is to be a musician has radically changed. 
He contacted 2 musician friends (musicians in the traditional sense of the word), cellist Clément Petit and multi-instrumentalist Alex Finkin, to ask them if they wanted to join with him in creating an album that would be based on the arrangement of ten or so of his favourite songs taken from a whole range of different genres.
The three got down to work, with Emile discovering Aloe Blacc, long before the American singer made the headlines with the hit I Need A Dollar. 
Although Aloe Blacc had little singing experience at the time, he launched himself into Emile’s project with enthusiasm and open-mindedness in equal measure.
Roseaux is therefore the product of a meeting of minds and hearts between an enlightened amateur and a group of musicians whose talent and adaptability made this project possible and gave it its artistic unity. 

The same lack of musical dogmatism as evinced by Emile’s choice of music for the Radio Nova playlist and his evenings on the turntables is on display here in the shape of such little-known gems as Strange Things by the Jamaican John Holt, Indifference by grunge band Pearl Jam, Patti Labelle’s More Than Material, Try Me by Esther Phillips and Clarao da Lua by Brazil’s Nazaré Peirera. The most famous track is undoubtedly Walking On The Moon by The Police. A world away from ‘carbon copy’ style cover versions,  each of the ‘guest tracks’ gets its own special treatment whereby it metamorphoses into something completely different (in the eyes of anyone who is familiar with the original version) and utterly enchanting. These are not covers in the narrow, generally accepted meaning of the word – they can best be classified as reinterpretations or even complete rewritings of songs. So, the Jamaican feel of Rad Bryan’s Girl you rock my soul gives way to polished folk guitar arrangements and string instruments, the swaying rhythm of Walking On The Moon falls into line with the jazzy footsteps of Nina Simone, John Holt’s rocksteady Strange Things takes the road to Rio, Missing You, the 90s underground house hit from Kim English is transformed into a soul ballad, before dropping into a long, cross-fade on the Fender Rhodes electric piano, Bill Evans style.

Could it be this way of gently bending these songs to their will that was the inspiration behind the name ‘Roseaux’? Or perhaps it’s the air of elegance that emanates from the album as a whole, a melancholy tide of post-soul and nocturnal jazz lapping against the shores of this scattering of songs through which the gentle, caressing tones of Aloe Blacc wend their way? One thing is certain, with Roseaux, Emile Omar and his partners have succeeded in investing this project with more than just a certain unity, more even than an identity – they have given it a soul. 


Roseaux  feat. Aloe Blacc - "More than material"

Buy The Waiting Room OST here: 
https://williamryanfritch.bandcamp.com/album/the-waiting-room-original-motion-picture-soundtrack

An album from William Ryan Fritch (aka Vieo Abiungo)

To watch the trailer for this 85th Annual Academy Awards shortlisted film, "The Waiting Room" and learn more about it visit, http://www.whatruwaitingfor.com/film/

William Ryan Fritch - Hold High Your Head

Order the album here: http://losttribesound.bandcamp.com/album/the-waiting-room-original-motion-picture-soundtrack
Download Press Kit: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/9167989/WRF-Waiting%20Room-Mini-Press-Kit.zip

For five months, director Peter Nicks embedded himself and his crew in the emergency room of Highland Hospital, a large public hospital located in Oakland, Calif., and filmed the hundreds of patients who entered the facility every day in need of care, as well as the overburdened staff of nurses and doctors attempting to deliver quality treatment in difficult conditions. The Waiting Room turns Highland’s ER into its own self-contained universe and keeps its focus entirely on the men and women who populate it. It’s a small-scale story that -- captured through Nick's intimate and transparent lens -- speaks volumes about the larger problems facing American healthcare. The emergency room is understaffed and underfunded but the film is remarkably policy-free. There are no title cards or celebrity voice overs, no calls for action, no heavy-handed visual or musical cues suggesting the audience laugh or cry. The footage alone is enough.  

For original soundtrack composition, Nicks chose an up-and-coming film composer and producer William Ryan Fritch, Fritch, an Oakland resident, has composed for dozens of award-winning Independent narrative and documentary films (The Myth of the American Sleepover, Leave Me Like you Found Me, The Stinking Ship, Days Together, etc.), released several records under his own name and the moniker Vieo Abiungo, and arranges and produces music for a cadre of other artists. The common thread running throughout these diverse projects is their high-altitude clarity: singing upper registers, buzzing lows, and natural reverberations. 

Fritch’s Waiting Room soundtrack is the ideal complement, with persistent gravities and thudding tempos that are keenly aware of the passing hours.  The crawl of time is transcribed to sound with prolonged string notes, potent repetition and exquisite silences between topographies. While the singsong melodies, diverse instrumentation,  and acoustic nuance parallel the colorful and multi-faceted community the film surrounds. The soundtrack is textured and resonant, cinematic in both senses of the word: its impact is visual as well as aural, and the impact is pulse-quickening, exhilarating.  But the duality of homogenous and heterogeneous is the most striking: Fritch’s uncountable instruments begin to resemble a sea of faces, like those Nicks has documented, waiting for emergency care.  Diverse when viewed from up close, but cohesive in the end, their colors and timbres spilling together when seen as a whole.

From the hesitant, ringing “Any and All Of Us” to the symphonic title score, Fritch has produced twelve decisive movements. Many listeners will find this soundtrack to be the high point of an already accomplished career: a clear thematic statement, an intriguing metaphor for the state of public health care, and yet another delivering, transcendent work of art.

As of press time, Peter Nick was awarded the Independent Spirit Awards “Truer Than Fiction” filmmaking grant for his work on The Waiting Room, and the  film has received more than its share of awards and recognition, the San Francisco Film Critics Circle award for Best Documentary, and a place on the Academy Awards shortlist for Best Documentary.  NPR listed The Waiting Room among their “10 Films Worth Going Out Of Your Way For,” and the Washington Post named it “one of the 10 best films of 2012”. Lost Tribe Sound is proud to play so crucial a role in this important documentary, and to help give lend a sublime pitch to the name of the film, and those patients who endure it, the hours upon hours of waiting.

Label Website: losttribesound.com
Film Website: whatruwaitingfor.com

Buy the Album

William Ryan Fritch - The Waiting Room (Full Album Preview)

Only One I Need is the fourth single to be released from Chris Hurn's debut album Too Busy Dreamin'.

Chris Hurn is a twenty-two year old folk-pop singer/songwriter from Lower Hutt, New Zealand. After playing in various local bands, including Play it Strange 2007 national competition winners The Lunch Box Boys, a 60’s style indie-pop band, he discovered a love for folk music and decided to go solo in late 2009.

Inspired by the likes of Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Nick Drake and Leonard Cohen he began to write a collection of songs that would soon become his first album. Although heavily influenced by his folk heroes, he draws upon a wide range of genres and styles of music. As well as having a soft spot for modern pop and rock, Chris has spent a considerable amount of time soaking up 60′s pop groups, notably The Mamas and the Papas, The Beatles and the Kinks.

Coming from a multi-instrumental background, Chris commenced his musical endeavours at a young age with the piano and a cheap plastic recorder. His first album is heavily based around the acoustic guitar but whistles, clicks, claps, harmonica and harmonies also play a big part in the sound. Astonishingly, Chris plays all the instruments on his debut as well as mixing and producing it himself. His lyric-writing reveals a world-wise maturity beyond his years and coupled with his knack for writing highly catchy melodies, he seems sure to secure himself a place amongst a rising new generation of young singer/songwriters.

Too Busy Dreamin’ was recorded in 2010 in his Lower Hutt home studio, and mastered by Dave Cooley (Serge Gainsbourg, Polyphonic Spree) in LA.

When not playing folk music, Chris works as a composer writing orchestral based scores for video games and films.


REVIEW

While owing a clear debt to Paul Simon, the young Dylan, early Donovan and others in the acoustic singer-songwriter category, this young guy from Lower Hutt just north of Wellington, New Zealand brings a pop sensibility to his writing (the openers here Whatcha Got and Only One I Need hook you immediately) and often a deliberately light touch (whistles, handclaps). Maybe that is in part due to his background: He played in a pop-rock band The Lunch Box Boys which won the Play It Strange award in 2007 (which means he must have been about 17 at the time). Since then he discovered folk and that lineage of singer-songwriters and has struck out on his own. What is attractive about Hurn is that rather than indulging in melancholy miserablism which the idiom so often invites from a young and emotionally anxious performer, he has a sharp ear for a melodic hook and that he keeps each song distinctive. He also has an inviting, warm and believable voice which is persuasive when he get reflective (All I Really Want) or urgent (An Honest Man) as much as taking you along for a ride when the musical mood gets more breezy (Love and Silly Little Things with ukulele, whistling and la-la-la backing vocals). The closer is an ambitious, eight minute-plus Thank You and Goodnight which might also be his built-in encore... you will be hearing more of him, that's for sure. - Graham Reid, Elsewhere


Buy album on Bandcamp

Only One I Need

Australian-born Polish singer Nadya Golski spent time as a teenager in Papua New Guinea, living with the Gamuga Roglombo tribesmen. Her first release on Monkey is in a Papua New Guinean language with a balkan feel being remixed by Paris-based DJ Click.

Golski divides her time between Australia and Europe and Nadya and she and her musicians have performed at many festivals worldwide including Montreux Jazz Festival, Edinburgh Fringe, Sziget Festival, WomAdelaide and Woodford Folk Festival.

She has several albums to her name, some of which will be re-released on Monkey in the coming months. 

Woipa Woipa originally featured on her album Mezza Luna but is also included on the recently released compilation Gypsy Fever which celebrates the Eastern European music scene in Australia and New Zealand.


Woipa Woipa (DJ Click remix)

Distant Dreams and Morning Stars is from Inkadies, the latest solo album by dream-pop folk artist John White. As a follow up to Balloon Adventure (2000) and Mogwash (2003), The Inkadies might be described as the third instalment of tales from a delicate otherland where little creatures called Inkadies come to save the day.

The album was recorded in Madison, Wisconsin by friend and fellow singer/songwriter, Tom Hanson. Gathering guest musician’s from Madison’s lush music scene, the album boasts chiming harmonies and dripping Synth accompaniments underneath John’s dreamily relaxed vocals and gently strummed acoustic guitar

John White is also the frontman for seminal Dunedin fuzz-pop band Mëstar and shoegazing, distorted pop band The Blueness.

REVIEW

“The Inkadies” is the soundtrack to that glorious half-asleep period that we get before sleep - full of strange imaginations and warmth. Beautiful stuff, and an oh-so-welcome return from the talented Mr White."
- Cheese on Toast

Listen to album

Distant Dreams and Morning Stars

Paris is a lilting ode to that great city inspired by Bond Street Bridge's visit there in 2010.

Bond Street Bridge is the solo project of Auckland-based multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Sam Prebble. Since the release of first album The Mapamaker’s Art, Prebble has been busy, touring extensively in New Zealand, Australia and Europe and playing shows everywhere from dive bars to art galleries and festival stages. As well as his solo work as Bond Street Bridge, Prebble plays violin, mandolin and guitar for Reb Fountain and the Bandits and the Hannah Curwood Band, and is a long-standing member of Auckland folk-pop group The Broken Heartbreakers. In 2010, he hit the road in Europe, touring first with Tim Guy and then as stand-in violinist for Berlin-based NZ psychedelic post-rock ensemble An Emerald City. Along the way he has played shows alongside North American psychedelic heavyweights Black Mountain and the Black Angels, New York art-pop duo The Books, and Californian alt-folksters The Mountain Goats.

Despite his involvement in this range of other projects, Prebble kept Spring Summer Awesome Winter a resolutely solo affair. He worked on the album in spare moments over a period of two years in between stints of touring and recording projects with other bands, capturing the whole thing with one microphone on an old laptop in the lounge or bedroom of a succession of tumbledown central Auckland villas. Crafting the record from the ground up, Prebble wrote the songs, played all the instruments, and engineered the recordings, involving other people only at the mixing and mastering stages. At that point Jamie Newman (Cinema 90) came on board as mixing engineer, and together they took the tracks to a studio in a barn north of Auckland, where Newman worked magic and made them sparkle.

The solo approach gave Prebble the freedom to experiment with sounds and arrangements, producing a collection of songs that is at once intimate and unique. Using a sonic palette consisting of fingerpicked acoustic guitars, lush strings, chiming mandolins and glockenspiels, warm vocal harmonies and analogue synthesisers, antique organs and pianos, and found-sound beats from staple-guns and key-rings washed out with rich reverbs and tape delays, he created intricate soundscapes to surround his trademark wry observational lyrics. These songs tell stories from the fantastical to the mundane: love and distance, storms at sea and the crying of the gulls, history, memory, loss and wasted youth, getting to bed on time so you won’t be tired in the morning, and the feeling that any minute now somebody’s going to realise you’re bluffing. As the title suggests, most of the songs on the album deal with the passing of time and the changing of seasons in various ways. 

Paris

Shoot the Moon is a personal and intimate song written in a state of digesting lost love and is the second single to be released from The Major Pins debut album Roundabout.

"Composing music can be a wonderful healthy and cleansing process," states The Major Pins' singer and songwriter Katharina Garden.

Put together by songwriter and film editor Jonas Dahl with whom she also performs in a duo this old footage from 1953 was taken from the film "Catwomen of the Moon" and shows a strong and feministic world relating very well to the content of the song. In the end love wins over sanity - almost always like in real life!

Check out the retro sci-fi music video here: http://youtu.be/aTc9wqXLxi4

Shoot the Moon

Buy the album here: https://williamryanfritch.bandcamp.com/album/a-hounds-heart

First time this material has ever been available for purchase. Previously, it was released to a handful of folks as bonus EP with the Vieo Abiungo release "Thunder May Have Ruined the Moment". The music is just too good not to share! 

If you like this album, please buy it. We appreciate the support and it only helps us to make more good music!

William Ryan Fritch -  A Transient Comfort (from A Hound's Heart)

Previously released for a short time in 2011 during the promotion of William Ryan Frithc (aka Vieo Abiungo's) "And the World is Still Yawning" album. This is the first time this material has been available since.

Purchase the B-sides here, http://losttribesound.bandcamp.com/album/and-the-world-is-still-yawning-b-sides

credits
All songs composed, mixed, and mastered by William Ryan Fritch
Copyright 2011 Lost Tribe Sound, LLC
Published by Lost Tribe Designs (ASCAP) 

Vieo Abiungo (aka William Ryan Fritch)- Small Birds with Fast Hearts

Purchase here: http://bit.ly/12HfCqR (Out August 5th 2013)

Buy Emperia's music: http://bit.ly/102VylF
Emperia: http://on.fb.me/YxxZRD
Paranoiak: http://on.fb.me/nxEMMe

Artwork by Markeur: http://on.fb.me/17kxMRx

Emperia - Noizt

Monkey Records is a boutique independent record label founded in New Zealand in the year 2000 by Nigel Braddock but now based in Berlin. 

After working for twenty years with some amazing artists from all over the world, Monkey Records is no longer accepting any new artist submissions and Braddock is now focused on releasing his own music. Projects include his solo piano compositions under his own name, ambient electronica as Broad Oak and Choam Nomsky as well as collaborations such as The Mung Beings, The Tellurians and Cosmo and the Cosmonaut (with his own son).