It is true. Listening to the purity of "Leave Love Out of This" by the surprising sublime New Zealand art pop / indie rock artist Anthonie Tonnon you feel refreshed like breathing clean air for the first time after spending a life time in a dirty smog filled city. Now don't get me wrong, I absolutely adore dissonant guitars and the raw feral nature of punk and there are elements of ferocity in Tonnon's repertoire (and this song) but it is the spartan moments, when there is no place to hide, that are so stunning. Tonnon's overal aesthetic also feels very classic and if you were to be forced to pick a decade (or decades), I sense the 60's chamber pop aesthetic of a Harry Nilsson and the 2000'a broader pop theatricality of a Rufus Wainwright. You might think of others. For me, Tonnon also dips into the more bent carnival mirror of psychedelia as well and as odd as it might seem, when I listen to the pure art pop Tonnon crafts I flash on the more quieter psych rock moments of a band like Be Bop Deluxe (circa mid 70's - listen to 'Crying to The Sky').
[Produced with The Beths’ Jonathan Pearce, who shares a writing credit on the song, New Zealand-based art popper Anthonie Tonnon “Leave Love Out of This” features Stuart Harwood on drums, Pearce on synthesizers, and a string quartet led by Charmian Keay and arranged by Matthew Bodman. The song has been a favorite at Tonnon’s immersive live shows, such as A Synthesized Universe - where Tonnon performs the epic guitar solo with a Nebula fly-through and a synchronized light show.]
Breath it all in deeply.
- Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:
https://www.anthonietonnon.com/
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The world is full of singer-songwriters, but few of them forge the kind of paths that Anthonie Tonnon has. His work has developed into a unique blend of music, art and advocacy, and shows that are creative works in themselves.
Tonnon has supported acts like Beirut, Nadia Reid, The Chills and The Veils, while producing albums with bandmate and collaborator, Jonathan Pearce (The Beths). Over that time, he has used live performance to experiment with new technology and approaches, leading to the immersive shows that have seen him touring planetariums, or taking audiences to distant venues on unloved public railways.
Tonnon is releasing a new single, and announcing the upcoming release of his third full-length album, Leave Love Out Of This, produced with Pearce, which will be released on July 16th on Slow Time Records (UK/EU/NZ) and Misra Records (North America).
The album will be available on vinyl, CD, and as a green vinyl Deluxe Edition LP, with a bonus 7” record. It will be the first release on Slow Time Records that is not by the label’s founder, acclaimed Dunedin-born songwriter and performer Nadia Reid, herself.
The first single from the new album, ‘Entertainment,’ is out now, along with a new video produced by Auckland, New Zealand filmmakers, and The Beths’ collaborators, Sports Team, and starring Tonnon, Pearce, Sports Team, and mixed-media artist Erica Sklenars. The video, (inspired by a real gig where Tonnon and Sklenars performed) starts as a disastrous live-to-camera performance and ends in a hallucinatory coda.
On ‘Entertainment’, Tonnon and Pearce move beyond the 1970s technology that powered Successor – and into electronically generated percussion, and textures that blur the lines between organic and synthesized sound. Guitars are set against synthesizers, and drums against drum machines, in a story about restructure at a television station, and an athlete with a once-in-a-lifetime chance at a career on the small screen.
Tonnon provides some insight into the new single: “In television, you have to guess what the audience wants. Different sides can claim they have a better idea but in the end the creator chooses. There is often a battle over what hypothetical audiences ‘want,’ and in this song, this battle plays out between powerful people in cities trying to assert their validity to represent working class, provincial tastes."
Of the approach to the sound of the album, Pearce, who also produced Tonnon’s Taite Music Prize-nominated Successor (2015), and The Beths’ 2020 Aotearoa Music Awards Album of the Year, Jump Rope Gazers says, “This is our idea of what it sounds like when the digital meets the fleshy. We have blunt fingers and thumbs, and we have to create handles and knobs and sliders for ourselves. We can’t really see or really know what our devices are doing; we have to accept what they do, and make something with that.”
Though his sound has evolved over time, a constant has been Tonnon’s lyrics. The artist tackles the rise to the top of the television industry in ‘Entertainment’ as deftly as he did for evolution and the future of work in ‘Two Free Hands’, and regulatory failure in ‘Mataura Paper Mill’. Tonnon has been long-listed for esteemed New Zealand songwriter title the APRA Silver Scroll Award three times, making it to the top five for ‘Water Underground’, his excoriation of the mismanagement of fresh water and local democracy in Canterbury.
Tonnon and Pearce recorded Leave Love Out Of This between 2017 and 2020, and in that time, Tonnon’s practice evolved heavily. He began incorporating new performance elements like dance and spoken-word narrative into his work, and new technologies, including the Wellington-designed Synthstrom Deluge – which he would later use to control music and lighting in an immersive show for planetariums, A Synthesized Universe.
He took the approach further with an annual tour titled Rail Land – which transports audiences by rail to musical performances at distant community halls. The show combines historical research and narrative segues, along with the choreographed use of the technology developed in A Synthesized Universe. The tour gave a practical vent to Tonnon’s growing interest in public transport advocacy. (In 2020 Tonnon was appointed as a representative for Whanganui’s City Council on public transport matters).
Work on both ‘Entertainment’ and Leave Love Out Of This began in Auckland, at Pearce’s studio on Karangahape Road. However, after Tonnon relocated to Whanganui – and with Pearce touring constantly after the runaway success of The Beths’ first album – the pair continued their collaboration at a distance.
The final mix of the single was completed by Pearce in Chelva, Spain, at the home of Lil Chief Records’ reclusive head Scott Mannion, and a refuge for The Beths while between international tours. Drums and bass on ‘Entertainment’ were contributed by Tonnon’s long time band members Stuart Harwood and David Flyger.
At his recent 2021 Auckland Arts Festival performances of Rail Land (March 18 and 19), Tonnon announced he was partnering with Nadia Reid and Slow Time Records for the release of Leave Love Out Of This.
Reid says: “I’d always dreamed of starting a label. I’d worked hard as a DIY musician for years and enjoyed the ins and outs of running my music career with a business sense lens. I see Slow Time Records eventually becoming a stable of like-minded artists – artists I have a connection with, admire, and who also have a tie to Ōtepoti Dunedin, my current home and the place I grew up. Having toured nationally and internationally with Tonnon, and being a fan since forever, it’s a perfect fit that he let Slow Time release his album here in New Zealand, and in Europe.”
Anthonie Tonnon, indie rock, art pop, alternative rock, sublime, beautiful surprises. spartan pure pop, chamber pop, 60's tones, The Beths' Jonathan Pearce, string quartet, "Leave Love Out of This", New Zealand
- Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:
https://www.anthonietonnon.com/
bandcamp
youtube
soundcloud
The world is full of singer-songwriters, but few of them forge the kind of paths that Anthonie Tonnon has. His work has developed into a unique blend of music, art and advocacy, and shows that are creative works in themselves.
Tonnon has supported acts like Beirut, Nadia Reid, The Chills and The Veils, while producing albums with bandmate and collaborator, Jonathan Pearce (The Beths). Over that time, he has used live performance to experiment with new technology and approaches, leading to the immersive shows that have seen him touring planetariums, or taking audiences to distant venues on unloved public railways.
Tonnon is releasing a new single, and announcing the upcoming release of his third full-length album, Leave Love Out Of This, produced with Pearce, which will be released on July 16th on Slow Time Records (UK/EU/NZ) and Misra Records (North America).
The album will be available on vinyl, CD, and as a green vinyl Deluxe Edition LP, with a bonus 7” record. It will be the first release on Slow Time Records that is not by the label’s founder, acclaimed Dunedin-born songwriter and performer Nadia Reid, herself.
The first single from the new album, ‘Entertainment,’ is out now, along with a new video produced by Auckland, New Zealand filmmakers, and The Beths’ collaborators, Sports Team, and starring Tonnon, Pearce, Sports Team, and mixed-media artist Erica Sklenars. The video, (inspired by a real gig where Tonnon and Sklenars performed) starts as a disastrous live-to-camera performance and ends in a hallucinatory coda.
On ‘Entertainment’, Tonnon and Pearce move beyond the 1970s technology that powered Successor – and into electronically generated percussion, and textures that blur the lines between organic and synthesized sound. Guitars are set against synthesizers, and drums against drum machines, in a story about restructure at a television station, and an athlete with a once-in-a-lifetime chance at a career on the small screen.
Tonnon provides some insight into the new single: “In television, you have to guess what the audience wants. Different sides can claim they have a better idea but in the end the creator chooses. There is often a battle over what hypothetical audiences ‘want,’ and in this song, this battle plays out between powerful people in cities trying to assert their validity to represent working class, provincial tastes."
Of the approach to the sound of the album, Pearce, who also produced Tonnon’s Taite Music Prize-nominated Successor (2015), and The Beths’ 2020 Aotearoa Music Awards Album of the Year, Jump Rope Gazers says, “This is our idea of what it sounds like when the digital meets the fleshy. We have blunt fingers and thumbs, and we have to create handles and knobs and sliders for ourselves. We can’t really see or really know what our devices are doing; we have to accept what they do, and make something with that.”
Though his sound has evolved over time, a constant has been Tonnon’s lyrics. The artist tackles the rise to the top of the television industry in ‘Entertainment’ as deftly as he did for evolution and the future of work in ‘Two Free Hands’, and regulatory failure in ‘Mataura Paper Mill’. Tonnon has been long-listed for esteemed New Zealand songwriter title the APRA Silver Scroll Award three times, making it to the top five for ‘Water Underground’, his excoriation of the mismanagement of fresh water and local democracy in Canterbury.
Tonnon and Pearce recorded Leave Love Out Of This between 2017 and 2020, and in that time, Tonnon’s practice evolved heavily. He began incorporating new performance elements like dance and spoken-word narrative into his work, and new technologies, including the Wellington-designed Synthstrom Deluge – which he would later use to control music and lighting in an immersive show for planetariums, A Synthesized Universe.
He took the approach further with an annual tour titled Rail Land – which transports audiences by rail to musical performances at distant community halls. The show combines historical research and narrative segues, along with the choreographed use of the technology developed in A Synthesized Universe. The tour gave a practical vent to Tonnon’s growing interest in public transport advocacy. (In 2020 Tonnon was appointed as a representative for Whanganui’s City Council on public transport matters).
Work on both ‘Entertainment’ and Leave Love Out Of This began in Auckland, at Pearce’s studio on Karangahape Road. However, after Tonnon relocated to Whanganui – and with Pearce touring constantly after the runaway success of The Beths’ first album – the pair continued their collaboration at a distance.
The final mix of the single was completed by Pearce in Chelva, Spain, at the home of Lil Chief Records’ reclusive head Scott Mannion, and a refuge for The Beths while between international tours. Drums and bass on ‘Entertainment’ were contributed by Tonnon’s long time band members Stuart Harwood and David Flyger.
At his recent 2021 Auckland Arts Festival performances of Rail Land (March 18 and 19), Tonnon announced he was partnering with Nadia Reid and Slow Time Records for the release of Leave Love Out Of This.
Reid says: “I’d always dreamed of starting a label. I’d worked hard as a DIY musician for years and enjoyed the ins and outs of running my music career with a business sense lens. I see Slow Time Records eventually becoming a stable of like-minded artists – artists I have a connection with, admire, and who also have a tie to Ōtepoti Dunedin, my current home and the place I grew up. Having toured nationally and internationally with Tonnon, and being a fan since forever, it’s a perfect fit that he let Slow Time release his album here in New Zealand, and in Europe.”
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