New Chills Album Compiles Martin Phillipps’ Recordings of His Earliest Songs

Before his death this June at the age of 61, Martin Phillipps, the founder of New Zealand jangle-pop greats the Chills, was at work on an album of songs he wrote in his youth but never formally recorded. That work of reimagination, Spring Board: The Early Unrecorded Songs, is now ready for release. Spring Board: The Early Unrecorded Songs will arrive on February 28, 2025, via Fire. Listen to a track from the collection, “If This World Was Made for Me,” below, and scroll down for the tracklist.

A press release quotes Phillipps recollecting the experience of making the record. “All of the songs needed varying degrees of rewriting,” he said. “A 60-year old man couldn’t just stick to the lyrics of those formative years. And some of the songs were just vague recollections, incomplete, only blossoming during recording.” Contributors to the LP include Crowded House’s Neil Finn and members of Fur Patrol, Split Enz, Purple Pilgrims, and other New Zealand institutions.