Choice Kiwi Cuts 2021: The Chills - 'Monolith'

During a year (and in a world) full of upheaval and uncertainty it’s sometimes reassuring to know that some things never change. Especially when that “thing” has been around for decades and involves the mercurial ability to produce clever, quirky, intimate pop music on a whim. Step forward Martin Phillipps and The Chills, with another understated pop masterclass in the form of 2021 album Scatterbrain. It probably won’t win any shiny gongs or be acclaimed as the band’s “best ever” in years to come (because it definitely isn’t that) but it still has enough personality and warmth to be considered yet another primo addition to the band’s ongoing legacy. ‘Monolith’ was the scene-setting album opener and one of my own favourites ...

(Choice Kiwi Cuts 2021 is a series of blogposts which seek to highlight the best tracks released by New Zealand artists over the course of the calendar year. Not necessarily the “best” in any commercial sense, but those which have proven to be the best additions to this blogger’s music collection)

Album Review: The Chills - Scatterbrain (2021)

A few months back, when the Guardian published a list of the ten “best” Chills songs to celebrate the arrival of the band’s new album, Scatterbrain, all of the songs featured on the list were released between 1981 and 1990. And although that list did tend to capture the essence of the band’s best work, anyone unfamiliar with The Chills might be left wondering if that’s all there is, or was, to The Chills ... a band consigned to the 80s with little worth celebrating over the past 30-odd years? Fans of band are likely to see things a bit differently.

 For the record, ‘House with a Hundred Rooms’ topped the list, ahead of more obvious bangers like ‘I Love My Leather Jacket’ and ‘Pink Frost’, but there was no room for ‘Heavenly Pop Hit’ or a multitude of other post-1990 gems. Fair enough, lists are merely lists after all, and that was the Guardian’s view. 

Scatterbrain is the band’s seventh studio album, the first since 2018’s well-received Snow Bound, and it finds the band’s songwriter and key protagonist Martin Phillipps in a contemplative and reflective mood. Which is perhaps understandable … anyone who has viewed the excellent recent music-documentary, ‘The Chills: The Triumph and Tragedy of Martin Phillipps’, will have been given a good insight into Phillipps’ rather tumultuous personal journey over the years. 

On Scatterbrain we find Phillipps offering up a few more thoughts about where that journey has taken him, bringing us up to date with where things are at, a little further along the path, in 2021. With a refreshing honesty and maturity. In that same warm familiar clever way he always has. As a man now confronting his own fragility, his own mortality, and that of those around him. 

But while death is one of the most immediately evident themes on Scatterbrain, not least on tunes like ‘Destiny’ and ‘Caught In My Eye’, there’s also plenty of positivity to be found, and an affirmation that life is full of twists and turns. Delivered with certain pragmatism and an acceptance that all of our journeys are constantly evolving. 

‘Safe and Sound’ is one of the best low-key takes on offer, a very Dunedin take, even, where Phillipps ponders the simple pleasures of being tucked up “safe and sound” at home on the sofa in front of a crackling fire on a cold winter’s night … “let’s stay at home, we won’t go out tonight” … 

Musically it is everything you’d expect from The Chills. Subtle hooks, catchy choruses that tend to creep up on you, and clever use of instruments that wouldn’t always be the most obvious choice for a lesser composer of classic pop tunes. 

The album isn’t without its flaws, or without the odd cringe(y) moment. And it’s probably not the sort of work that will grab you instantly upon first listen, but Scatterbrain goes well beyond any expectation I had of Phillipps and The Chills in 2021, and it’s another worthy addition to the musical legacy of one of Aotearoa’s best and most durable artists.

Film Review: The Chills - The Triumph and Tragedy of Martin Phillipps

Craig Stephen watched The Chills: The Triumph and Tragedy of Martin Phillipps, in Wellington …

The first time we see Martin Phillipps, the one continuum of The Chills since its inception in 1980, is at a hospital in Dunedin, where he is being prodded, scanned and injected for a series of health tests. Phillipps has Hepatitis C, which he contracted by accident from a dirty needle (listen up kids: don’t do drugs) during his substance-hoovering days (of which there were many). 

The prognosis isn’t good. Phillipps’ liver is 80 percent defunct and he has a 31 percent chance of surviving beyond the next 6-9 months if he doesn’t go teetotal. The check-up takes place at the end of 2016 and we travel with him throughout his brave bid to free himself of the disease, and cleanse himself from the demon drink (listen up kids: don’t do booze, well not whisky on the rocks for breakfast anyway). 

While this conjures up images of a hellraiser, which aren’t exactly dispelled by the singer, we soon see a side of him that we may not have expected - the hoarder, with a huge collection of DVDs, records, CDs, books, artefacts, and toys. Yes, toys. Phillipps lives alone and his collecting obsession, he admits, is partially to compensate him for the isolated living situation. 

As part of the cathartic experience of trying to save his life, Phillipps embarks on a mission to rid himself of some of this collection. Among this extraordinarily vast collection - some of which is included in an exhibition in Dunedin - are mummified cats which he paints then sticks on boards before hanging on the wall. He has also kept a tray of decapitated eggshells which he has painted. 

Interspersed with this personal illumination on a somewhat eccentric character is the story of The Chills, undoubtedly one of New Zealand’s most influential bands. In four decades, The Chills have gone through 21 different line-ups and more than 30 members. In that sense alone they have an historical link to The Fall, led by another hard-drinking eccentric.

Phillipps hasn’t always treated his colleagues terribly well, and near the end of the documentary confesses to having failed some and apologises (if not effusively it has to be said) for not supporting them when he could. One such sad tale is that of the multi-talented Andrew Todd. The keyboardist bailed when it was clear he was getting neither the respect from his colleague nor job satisfaction from what he was doing with the band. Todd isn’t interviewed but many others are, including Terry Moore, who had three spells with the act, and one extremely unlikely member, Phil Kusabs who had a background in death metal acts before joining the “twee indie band”. 

We learn of the death of an early band member, Martyn Bull, who before he succumbed to leukaemia, gave Phillipps his prized leather jacket, leading to The Chills’ legendary ‘I Love My Leather Jacket’ single. There was a serious car collision with a truck on a small bridge, in which everyone remarkably survived, personality clashes, and debt. Phillipps comes across as personable and driven, but also possibly narcissistic. 

Director Julia Parnell also talks to former managers of the band, as well one of the few musical superstars from Aotearoa, Neil Finn, who offers rather little insight other than a few platitudes. 

Around 1990, The Chills were making inroads into America and the album Submarine Bells was a massive hit. But it soon fell apart, and Phillipps was back in Dunedin left to ponder once again another incarnation of the band. 

The fact that there have been numerous versions of the same band since, and The Chills recorded their finest effort for many years, Snow Bound, in 2018, speaks volumes for the toughness and commitment of Phillipps and the musicians who have stood by him. 

Near the end of the film Phillipps returns to see the same medic in the same hospital and is informed that there are now no signs of Hepatitis C. Onwards to the next Chills studio album.