Across five solo albums Jonathan Bree has explored themes of love, desire and isolation to varying degrees of intensity. On his new (double) album, ‘Don’t Call It Love’, Bree takes this further, narrowing the focus and creating what he calls “an erotic concept driven work” that explores emotions, sexuality, and just a bit of loneliness. Heady stuff.
On Bree’s 2023 album, ‘Pre-Code Hollywood’, he explored a disco influence, but here he moves closer to the 1980s dark synth textures key to dark wave, or post-punk. More-than-fleeting influences can be heard from Japan, Portishead, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and The Cure, while there is a hint of ‘Scary Monsters’-era Bowie in Bree’s vocals.
The first sound on ‘Don’t Call It Love’ is the drums, an insistent beat that leads into Disappear, where Bree’s voice appears from within the mix and then returns to it while the music plays out. Touches of his earlier work appear throughout his songs, notably the glissando strings of Chameleon, and the distinctive, atmospheric female background vocals, but this album, from the start deviates into something more cinematic, and more disorienting.
There is a sense of destabilisation too, notable within This is Me where Bree’s statement of identity shifts with shuffling beats, echo and reverb, and unsettling strings.
Collaborations have always been a significant part of his work, and here Bree partners with women musicians, film-makers, photographers and dancers. ‘Don’t Call it Love’ has duets with Princess Chelsea on Slow, Live to Dance, and Part-Time Lover, Amber Ramsay on Little Miss No Name, and Eloïse Labarbe-Lafon on Chamelon, while Adah Dylan, and Rachel Clarke take over vocal duties on the title track and Savour My Love respectively, their voices providing a thematic balance and perspective.
Bree’s own singing is outstanding, veering from his deep rich baritone to upper registers where his voice sometimes strains with an emotive, and charged affect.
At 17 tracks and 70 minutes long this is a concept album about the darkness of anonymous and not-so-anonymous encounters – that requires a committed listening. It is one of Bree’s most seductive albums, and certainly feels like the logical progression of his work both lyrically and musically, going deeper into his musical and production palette.
Released on his own Lil’ Chief Records label, produced by Bree, and performed by him and his cast of musicians and vocalists including Princess Chelsea, Dean Wareham, Jeremy Toy, and Ryan McPhun ‘Don’t Call It Love’ is exceptionally good.
Jonathan Bree’s knack of writing songs that have sonic and lyrical layers continues and while an epic listen, it’s rewarding on every level. ‘Don’t Call It Love’ is luscious, sexy, at times intense and vaguely uncomfortable. In other words, unmissable.
