All in your head

Three Kiwi artists take a meander down a road less travelled, luxuriating in rich influences.

- GRAHAM REID

PRE-CODE HOLLYWOOD, by Jonathan Bree 

Belgian surrealist René Magritte's 1928 painting Two Lovers had the kissing couple's heads swathed in concealing cloth, passion thwarted.

After his time in the Brunettes, Princess Chelsea's The Cigarette Duet clip (90 million-plus YouTube views) and solo albums, it was a little late for Jonathan Bree to adopt similar face covering on his 2018 album Sleepwalking.

But the anonymity, mystery and allure remained potent over subsequent clips and album covers, including this, which shifts from the European ennui and doomed romanticism of 2020's After the Curtains Close into emotionally cool 80s synth-pop (When We Met) and the Bowie-cumBlondie disco duet of Miss You with Chelsea. This features the legendary guitarist and 1980s producer Nile Rodgers, who also appears on the similarly clipped-funk title track.

There's polished gloom on We'll All Be Forgotten, where Bree stretches beyond his Bowie-esque low register into pained emotionalism, and if Steel and Glass employs an obvious metaphor it suits the disengaged, soulless urban landscape of the Gary Numan mood.