Chills - Spring Board: The Early Unrecorded Songs - Import CD

Credits:

Chills

Description:

As part of New Zealand’s Dunedin scene, the Chills played an incalculably important role in shaping the sound of independent rock. Centered around singer, songwriter, and the band’s sole consistent member Martin Phillipps, the Chills offered a moodier, more uneasy counterpoint to the puckish experimentalism of the Tall Dwarfs or the proto-slacker melodicism of janglier rock bands like the Clean or Sneaky Feelings. Through the ‘80s and early ‘90s, the Chills carved out a particular sound within their scene, and Phillipps continued refining that sound with new songs and albums right up until his death in 2024. Springboard: The Early Unrecorded Songs is a project Phillipps was working on at the time of his death, one that found him returning to songs he’d started writing in his youth but had never formally completed or released. Many of these songs date back to the early ‘80s when the Chills were just getting off the ground, and tracks like “Juicy Creaming Soda” or the spirited and organ hook-driven “Dolphins” captured the signature sighing melancholy that the Chills and so many other Flying Nun bands of the mid-’80s could deliver by just moving from one loosely played guitar chord to another. “And When You’re There” is more rocking, with distorted guitars, big drums, and bending synth lines firing on all cylinders without losing any of Phillipps’ distinctive character as an ever-tuneful songwriter. “If This World Was Made for Me” taps into yet another side of Phillipps’ songwriting personality, the eerie, almost menacing shadowiness that made some of the band’s best-loved tracks like “Pink Frost” so mysteriously captivating. On this song, Phillipps envisioned his ideal world, a relatively mundane premise set to an instrumental so ominous and cinematic it renders the lyrics almost unsettling. When Phillipps began the process of revisiting these songs he’d begun writing in his twenties, he was in his early sixties, and rewrote each unfinished composition from the vantage point of those decades of further experience and wisdom. Though the fact that Springboard ultimately became a posthumous album makes it especially bittersweet, it’s an exceptionally successful experiment in revisiting and reframing the past. Whether his songs are taking the form of noisy fun, moody bleakness, or naive and wistful pop, Phillipps is able to reconnect with his younger self in a beautiful way. These 20 songs allow a veteran songwriter to celebrate the parts of himself that never changed and also gently appreciate all the growth and understanding he gained through the parts that did change. Its a perfect full-circle final statement from an artist who spent his life penning songs of curiosity and introspection, and beyond that, its a joy to listen to. ~ Fred Thomas

Tracklisting:

1.Dolphins
2.Learn to Try Again
3.If This World Was Made for Me
4.Juicy Creaming Soda
5.I'll Protect You
6.And When You're There
7.Declaration
8.Stay Longer
9.Slime
10.Steel Skies
11.Jellyhead
12.Such Self Pity
13.Meet My Eyes
14.Bad Eggs
15.Lion Tamer
16.The Other
17.Since You Left Me
18.Watching Old Home Movies
19.I Saw Your Silhouette
20.I Don't Want to Live Forever