Send "The Brunettes " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 There's something creepy about the Brunettes' music, and it's hard to tell whether it's entirely intentional. The most obviously unnerving thing about the duo is its vocal dynamic: Jonathan Bree has a droll, modestly handsome voice that brings to mind a bookish dude in his thirties, and Heather Mansfield is chirpy, perky, and seldom sounds a day over 14. Mansfield's little-girl act is a deliberate affectation, and their music is very much part of a long tradition of twee indie pop that knowingly mingles adult sexuality with a playful, innocent tone. This is very self-aware music, but nevertheless it gets kinda tricky to figure out when the Brunettes are making the subtext in the contrast of their voices the hook of their music, or when they're just doing cutesy songs for the sake of it.The age dynamic isn't the only unusual tension on the Auckland, New Zealand-based duo's fourth album, Paper Dolls. As on their previous records, their compositions strike an odd balance of child-like singsong simplicity and subtle sophistication. Any time the group start to sound overly naive and artless, there is some kind of musical curveball thrown in to keep things from getting too flat and predictable. You wouldn't want to call any of these tracks complex, but Bree and Mansfield consistently add welcome dimension to songs that could easily come across as dumb and fluffy. This is a good thing, but the negative side effect is that this tendency flattens out the tone of the record as a whole. As much as whimsical tracks like "Red Rollerskates" and "In Colours" benefit from a bit of musical depth, the relatively mature electronic aesthetics of "Bedroom Disco" and "Connection" get muffled by their insistence on being adorable, making those songs sound like a preschool version of Broadcast circa Tender Buttons. Even the most enjoyable tracks here are cloying, and their best ideas are just things we've heard before in an indie marketplace choked with the twee sensibility....full text |
| Dustedmagazine |
| “Some people holding hands look like paper dolls, paper cuts of thoughts they must never show,” croons Jonathan Bree on the title track of the Brunettes’ fourth full-length. The image is fragile, fleeting, whimsical yet tinged with melancholy. A two-dimensional children’s art project stands in for all the unspoken subtleties of human connection, just as these simple-on-the-surface songs evoke love, longing and the power of imagination. The Brunettes are a New Zealand based electro-pop outfit, centered around the male-female duo of Jonathan Bree and Heather Mansfield, but augmented by occasional contributions from other Auckland musicians. Their sound is weightless and fanciful, sweet right up to the boundary of cloying-ness but not quite past it. Mansfield, in particular, has the breathy soprano of a little girl, landing lightly on lyrics that might not bear much additional weight. Bree’s voice is reedier and freighted with overtones of irony—he sounds at times like James Elkington of the Zincs. The duo’s vocal interplay is the core of Brunettes’ sound, a fresh, unstudied dialogue that seems more like snippets of overheard conversation than verse and chorus. The singing, utterly natural, is surrounded by playfully electronic sounds: programmed drums, popcorn bursts of synthesizer, disco swells of strings....full text |
| Olive-music |
| Pop is like candy. You want to keep your diet consistent of experimental and left-field music, which are your health foods, but you still hesitantly reach for the candy. Once you have only the slightest amount of candy digested, you can't help but indulge yourself. Same goes for me and this New Zealand pop duo, The Brunettes. I love dining on small portions of pretentious fiber cereals--but you know what? I'm going to endure this gluttonous meal of catchy radio-friendly hits, and I'm not guilty of it. Though they are only a duo, The Brunettes definitely show that there aren't any restrictions when it comes to their music. The ten songs on Paper Dolls showcase ambition using a variety of instrumentation and skilled songwriting, and when a song is taken out of the context of the album it works effectively as a single. The lyrics range from dancing in your bedroom to contemplating what would happen if you were to die. Drum machines and keyboards are emphasized to a large extent and the album takes on a very cheerful, upbeat mood. And all of this is being played through production that's as clean as a whistle....full text |
The Brunettes lyrics
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