Last week, I was very pleased to see the Peckham-based, New Zealand producer-DJ brother duo Ben and Louis Helliker-Hales aka Chaos In The CBD, finally release their debut album, "A Deeper Life." Fifteen years ago, I interviewed the brothers for the first time for the now-defunct and regionally legendary New Zealand music magazine, Rip It Up. At the time, having emerged out of the blog house era, before doing backwards-looking deep dives into the history of the French Touch scene and foundational Chicago House, they were on the verge of taking their sun-kissed Antipodean house sound to the world.
Over the decade and a half since, I've caught up with the brothers in various places around the world as they've built a rock-solid reputation as party-rocking DJs, versatile producers and good dudes who are just happy to be here. If their Rhythm Section released "Midnight In Peckham" EP (2015) was their first breakout moment, "A Deeper Life" looks set to solidify everything they've accomplished and learned over the last ten summers.
Opening with the coastal, thumb-piano dusted ambience of "Down By The Cove", "A Deeper Life" quickly unfolds into some serious drum machine bossa nova magic on the vivid Vin Riley / Steve Hiett indebted number "Mountain Mover" featuring the guitarist Alex Cosmo Blake. This is Balearic bliss as reimagined from the point of view of the big blue inflatable pool chair that adorns the covers of the classic New Zealand chillout music compilation series, "Lazy Sunday". As Ben explains in the sales notes, “In its own way, New Zealand is incredibly Balearic, but without the party side."
Up next on 'Maintaining My Peace' featuring Novelist and Stephaine Cooke, Ben and Louis hit a nocturnal, neon-lit drum machine/synth groove that feels optimised for late night drives across harbour bridges from Auckland, New Zealand to San Francisco and back again. Unsurprisingly, Novelist and Stephanie shine here, showing off lower-tempo rhymes and sultry soulful hooks. Shuffling from night grooves to a zone somewhere between technopop and pop boogie, "Tears" featuring Boston vocalist Saucy Lady almost feels optimised for sampling. Lads, if someone doesn't flip this one into a top40 jiggy hip-hop record in the next 18 months, we're really missing a trick here.
"Brain Gymnasium," the fifth track on "A Deeper Life", seems to build on elements of all of its previous four songs, drums hovering on sedate, laidback bounce, while vibrant melodies evoke an atmosphere equal parts jazz-funk and steelpan band on a Sunday. 'I Wanna Tell Someone' featuring the singer Josh Milian, keeps things shuffling as South American rhythms, pianos, and gospel/soul vocals bubble up into a smouldering groove that feels primed to explode into peak time party mode. Of course, a few minutes later, we get there on the jazzy house number "Ōtaki" featuring the Australian keyboard player, composer and Allysha Joy collaborator Finn Rees.
Seven songs in, and we're at the halfway mark of "A Deeper Life". This is where we start to really see the fruits of their longstanding obsessions with house music ripen. From David Morales’s Red Zone mixes and Kerri Chandler to DJ Sprinkles, Larry Heard and beyond, they've spent a lot of time listening to and thinking about this music. Fittingly, track eight "Love Language" sees them teaming up with another New Zealander who spent a lot of time in London and thinking about how dance music and live music in a jazz, soul and funk mode might best live together, the saxophonist, producer and DJ Nathan Haines. Floaty, dreamy and fancy free, it's one of those songs you can drift away to via freewheeling saxophone and piano lines, uptempo drums and a bassline that oozes funk.
On the title track, they team up with the New Zealand born trumpet player, producer and DJ Isaac Aesili, another longstanding mover and maker who has taken a decent swing at neo soul, electronic funk and broken beat at points in his career, hitting far more than he's missed. "A Deeper Life" is deep, driving and meditative. In recent years, Isaac has spent a lot of time in the sun in Thailand. As he plays against Ben and Louis's machine beats, you can hear the feeling of someone going from lost to found, understanding something about life and the world along the way.
"More Time" featuring the jack of all musical trades Lee Pearson Jr. Collective is an embarrassment of riches: dreamy chords, bubbling percussion, searching vocals. In some ways, it's really a royal flush of soulful house. Like many tracks on "A Deeper Life", this is music for the party, the afterparty and the next day spent recovering by the pool as well. The music really breathes. No chance of ear fatigue here. Soon enough, however, Ben and Louis are back in the studio with Nathan Haines for "Tongariro Crossing", a track that references an infamous New Zealand walk which is, how do I put this, an absolute essential trek for fans of Lord of The Rings, or just anyone who likes nature really. Drizzled in jazz flute, it's an absolute Sunday Session anthem. I need to hear this one during sunrise ASAP. That said, I'd settle for sunset as well.
From there, Chaos In The CBD go "Barefoot On The Tarmac" in a hazy downtempo style, before daydreaming about smoking ciggies in a beautiful location ("Marlboro Sounds") before closing things out with the bubbling synth melodies and nostalgic piano figures of "The Eternal Checkout" featuring the Turkish jazz pianst Cenk Esen for a perfect sunset slanted album closer. To evoke a classic '90s New Zealand cheese company television advertising catchphrase, good things take time. I'm sure a lot of interested parties out there would have liked it if Ben and Louis released an album five to ten years ago, but after a couple of listens, I'd be hard pressed to even try to argue that they made the wrong call by doing it at their own speed. "A Deeper Life" feels solid now, but I can just feel it's going to age into something special.
A Deeper Life is out now in vinyl, CD and digital formats through In Dust We Trust (Order here)
