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

Beyond Perfect

favorites

Soot the moon

daydreamin

Vibe

May 14, 2013 Tuesday Tracks

driving in a car

To Show: Ilana

founds

The second single from 12 piece New Zealand psychedelic soul orchestra The Hot Grits is a momentous tumbling late night blinder. The music video for this track was controversially banned by state broadcaster TVNZ - the first video to be banned in NZ since 1988. Watch it here: http://www.monkeyrecords.com/monkey/2008/07/07/the-hot-grits-headlights.
Headlights is from The Hot Grits' debut album 'It's Too Drunk to be this Early'.

Buy 

Headlights

Captain Cuts - Girls On Girls (Beyonce vs Beastie Boys vs Captain Cuts)

nothing's the matter

Robot Koch feat John Lamonica _ Nitesky
taken from the album "the other side"

http://projectmooncircle.bandcamp.com/album/the-other-side | http://www.projectmooncircle.com/ | http://www.robotsdontsleep.com/

Berlin producer Robot Koch is back for his third full length release, “The Other Side”.

Although Robot Koch has an international reputation as being "One of Europe`s finest producers of the beat generation" (Low End Theory), he is much more than just a beatmaker… “(Post)-dubstep infused Electronic Hip Hop“ is far too constrained a label to understand what this producer is all about. Instead of following the sound of his previous albums “Death Star Droid” ("Essential listening" - Bobby Friction BBC) and “Songs For Trees and Cyborgs“ ("Music for a modern age that has rarely sounded so good” - Boomkat), Koch takes the genre defying ingredients from these previous records to another level. There still are some of those “Galactic ten ton beats and space age melodies“ (Dazed and Confused) that made the previous albums staple drops in the playlists of Mary Anne Hobbs, Starkey, Daedelus and Gaslamp Killer to name a few, but there is a new dimension to Koch`s production and songwriting that didn’t show on his previous records.

The cinematic vibe of tracks like “Nitesky”, the quirky and moody feel of “Bugs” and the electricity of “Tapedeck” show how Koch more than ever manages to create intimate and timeless pieces of music that are soulful, deep, mysterious and that will appeal to fans of cutting edge Electronica and modern pop music alike. This is the most personal record of Robot Koch to date. Instead of going for big name features Koch teamed up with lesser know artists like Kansas based vocal talent John LaMonica, long time friend and theatre composer Nielson and mexican singer/songwriter Graciela Maria to find the right voices for his compositions. John LaMonica infuses his whimsical and heartfelt melodies that breathe an air of darkness and nostalgia with Koch`s fresh and forward thinking instrumentals to create something that fans of Radiohead, The XX and Jamie Lidell should not sleep on.

”I`m glad John contacted me, we were thinking of collaborating on one song for my album but it ended up being five songs, they were all fantastic and helped me find the right direction for ‘The Other Side’.”

After the release of the John Robinson collaboration album (“Robot Robinson” – Project Mooncircle) earlier this year, it seems surprising how extensive Robert’s output is, but don’t be mistaken, this album is a longer term project than just releasing the songs Koch made in the last year. Some of the songs found on “The Other Side” were made seven years ago.

”I didn’t know what to do with songs like ‘Bugs’ back then. Now it felt like the time has come to release them, they just made sense with of the most recent stuff I’ve been making and it all fell into place. But it was not an easy album for me to make. The previous albums just came together rather quick but this one was a real mission, something I’ve been trying to do for years and I could never really get it together until now.”

Legendary John Peel (BBC) knew in 2003 already when he said about Koch`s productions "Wonderful and strange, pop music from the future“.
Released by: Project Mooncircle
Release/catalogue number: PMC085
Release date: Oct 7, 2011
Released by: Project Mooncircle
Release/catalogue number: PMC085
Release date: Oct 7, 2011

Nitesky (feat John LaMonica)

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


Buy LP/CD

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

Starling

This Many Boyfriends - 'Starling'

This is our debut single 'Choking', a free download for Valentine's Day. This one's for someone special, be it real or unrequited love.


***DOWNLOAD LIMIT EXCEEDED!! GO HERE! http://thebirthdaykiss.bandcamp.com***

Choking

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

No Doubt - Settle Down (Baauer Remix)

What do you get if you mix a pound of Fela Kuti’s Afrika 70, two cupfuls of The Meters, 250g of thinly sliced early James Brown and a level dessert spoon of psychedelic rock? - you get the heaving, convulsing powerhouse of soul music that is The Hot Grits. 

This powerful slice of psychedelic soul is from their debut album It's Too Drunk to Be This Early.

Buy album on Bandcamp

Deep Threat

New single 'Holding On' ft. Gregory Porter
iTunes: http://po.st/http://po.st/HoldingOnSocial
Spotify: http://po.st/HoldingOnSpotify

Taken from the new album 'CARACAL' out 25th September
iTunes: http://po.st/Caracal3
Amazon: http://po.st/Caracal10
Official Store: http://po.st/4iqh1L
www.disclosureofficial.com

Disclosure Live: http://disclosureofficial.com/live/
Official Merch: http://po.st/4iqh1L

The debut album from Disclosure 'Settle' 
iTunes: http://po.st/Eabal4
Official Store: http://po.st/iaE7o9
Special Edition: http://po.st/viEW5R

http://disclosureofficial.com
http://facebook.com/disclosureuk
http://twitter.com/disclosure
http://instagram.com/disclosure
http://instagram.com/disclosure_pics
http://youtube.com/disclosureVEVO
http://youtube.com/officialdisclosure
https://open.spotify.com/artist/6nS5roXSAGhTGr34W6n7Et

Settle

Latch

Buy on iTunes

The Mother We Share out now: http://po.st/TWMSiT

The Bones Of What You Believe out now. Standard: http://po.st/TBOWYB | Special: http://po.st/TBOWYBSpecial

http://chvrch.es/
https://facebook.com/CHVRCHES
https://twitter.com/chvrches
http://chvrches.tumblr.com/

The Bones Of What You Believe

The Mother We Share

From the new album Heartthrob, available now on iTunes! bit.ly/XOkqI6

Closer

Twitter: https://twitter.com/snakehipsuk

Facebook: https://facebook.com/Snakehipsuk

YouTube: https://youtube.com/snakehipsuk

Website: http://snakehips.biz/

Wild Belle - It's Too Late (Snakehips Remix)

Fade Into You ft Steffaloo

I love the sound of daughter, so I decided to make a remix of her track "youth". I hope you enjoy it like I do. do.

Daughter - Youth (Alle Farben remix)

11 piece The Hot Grits deliver up a heaving slice of psychedelic soul with attitude on this track from their debut album It's Too Drunk To Be This Early. In what could be seen as a rallying cry to those alienated by recent elections, lead singer Barnie Duncan repeatedly proclaims "I am my own government motherf**ker" (either that or it's some kind of weird parody of Joe Stalin, it's heard to say). Regardless, it's a powerhouse of a song and never fails to bring the house down in a live performance. 

Make sure you check out the music video featuring The Grits protesting outside parliament and delivering up their political manifesto.

The Ballad of Joe Stalin

Berlin-based alt-pop trio The Major Pins present their debut single Robots.

The Major Pins are German musician and songwriter Katharina Garden on piano and guitar, New York drummer Henry Grant and Paul B Keeves from Birmingham playing electric bass. From their humble beginnings The Major Pins have been wowing an increasing number of music lovers and are seeking to spread their wings.

The music video for Robots was filmed at the legendary GDR (East German) broadcast studios in Berlin.

Robots is the first single to be released from the debut album by The Major Pins out now: http://www.monkeyrecords.com/album/the-major-pins-roundabout/




Robots

Boreal

"wishful thinking" from the debut self-titled ep available on itunes|amazon|bandcamp

http://brotherun.com

Wishful Thinking

Manzanita Falls is a four-piece indie-rock group from San Francisco Bay Area that formed in the Fall of 2011. Manzanita Falls spent the next year playing shows locally, creating a sound that is familiar, yet wholly their own. They have elements of bands such as The National, Wilco, and The Frames, but in a way that is uniquely Manzanita Falls. 

Manzanita Falls' first album Vinyl Ghost is out in April of 2013, and the band will be embarking on their second tour to support it. The album was originally slated to be released in November of 2012, but the band went through a near-fatal car accident in Abilene, TX that left the drummer, Matt Coit, with a fractured neck. After months of healing, the band is ready to go and excited to be bringing their dynamic tunes and captivating performances to a national audience.

"Crabgrass" - Manzanita Falls

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


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)

10 track playlist from 5 fantastic up and coming indie acts all bound for huge success in 2013.

All titles are offered at awesome introductory prices! Get involved!




Ex Cops - James

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

Advocate

Sunglassey

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).