{"id":247553,"date":"2025-04-29T10:41:04","date_gmt":"2025-04-28T22:41:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.muzic.nz\/?post_type=artists&p=247553"},"modified":"2025-08-11T15:54:41","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T03:54:41","slug":"chaos-in-the-cbd","status":"publish","type":"artists","link":"https:\/\/www.muzic.nz\/artists\/chaos-in-the-cbd\/","title":{"rendered":"Chaos In The CBD"},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"template":"","location":[34],"genre":[43],"class_list":["post-247553","artists","type-artists","status-publish","hentry","location-outside-of-nz","genre-edm"],"meta_box":{"artist_bio":"

Over the past decade, brothers and production duo Chaos In The CBD have gone from New Zealand newbies in London to underground DJs to international phenomenon, with over 100 million streams worldwide. But what grounds them, after all the touring as some of the finest purveyors of spectral and jazz-inflected deep house, is their connection to home. Though they\u2019ve been based in London for over a decade, Louis and Ben (aka Beans) Helliker-Hales have never stopped feeling at one with their homeland. Their debut album, A Deeper Life<\/em>, is nostalgic for their nature-filled youth, exploring the magical coastline and lush rainforest of New Zealand. \u201cThe title refers to our childhood, which was idyllic,\u201d says Ben. \u201cIt was just the sun, the sand, the sea, waterfalls, birds and fish...\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a far cry from the metropolis where the duo first made their name over 10 years ago, defining their sound with cult EP Midnight In Peckham<\/em> on the revered Rhythm Section label. After putting down guitars and picking up decks when Louis discovered raving, the brothers relocated to the UK capital in 2012 where they became immersed in the burgeoning south London scene as dance music met jazz sensibilities with renewed vitality. It was an eye-opener for two young guys from the Antipodes. \u201cWe cut our teeth in this bubbling community, with everyone throwing parties all the time,\u201d says Louis. \u201cComing from New Zealand, that was just so exhilarating.\u201d<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve spent the intervening years since honing an idiosyncratic, house-indebted style via their own imprint In Dust We Trust, culminating in a sold-out All Day Chaos takeover at London\u2019s revered Roundhouse and, last year alone, sets at world-renowned clubs and festivals like fabric in London, Robert Johnson in Frankfurt, DC10 Ibiza, Womb Tokyo, Timewarp Sa\u0303o Paulo, Glastonbury, Love International and more. But if Midnight In Peckham was the duo\u2019s coming of age then their debut album is Chaos In The CBD coming full circle. Their first full-length artistic statement digs even deeper into the brotherly bond at the heart of their music and the picturesque island life that made that bond deeper. It\u2019s \u201ca love letter to home and that feeling of being within nature,\u201d says Louis, as well as an \u201code to a slower pace of life,\u201d chimes Ben. For the album, \u201cwe created a holiday inside our heads.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chaos In The CBD started producing tracks for A Deeper Life<\/em> around 2019 and went through long periods of experimentation in their home studio, during breaks from their gig schedule. Ben \u2013 who left high school at 17 to go and study audio engineering \u2013 makes the music while Louis acts like \u201cthe Rick Rubin,\u201d an executive producer, cultural curator and brain behind the duo\u2019s fun-poking social media maestro who tells his brother when something is and isn\u2019t working. \u201cI've always been his biggest fan, and someone that is able to come in and be brutally honest with him as well,\u201d says Louis.<\/p>\n

A Deeper Life<\/em> was a new challenge, though: it was the first time they\u2019d united all of their disparate influences \u2013 as varied as The Cure, Pat Metheny, The Orb and Theo Parrish \u2013 and also the first time they\u2019d recorded live instruments and worked with vocalists. Previously the brothers had been a two-man cottage industry of beats and bleeps, passing ideas back and forth almost telepathically. Here, \u201cI had to let go of my ego and let other people play on the record,\u201d says Ben, \u201cwhich was hard to do. But it has elevated the project to a new level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Notably, they\u2019ve teamed up with a number of US legends and married their vocals with the UK underground: Josh Milan of house pioneers Blaze brings his soulful vocals to the bossa nova beats of I Wanna Tell Somebody<\/em>, a future jazz-dance anthem. Unheralded Chicago house hero and Larry Heard collaborator Lee Pearson Jr. goes deep over More Time<\/em>\u2019s broken beat flex. And on Maintaining My Peace<\/em>, the brothers have matched veteran house singer-songwriter Stephanie Cooke with UK grime MC Novelist, on a slinky LDN interpretation of LA hip-hop and g-funk \u2013 which is what Ben \u201cgrew up listening to as a teenager when I was writing graffiti and skateboarding.\u201d \u201cWe just wanted to work with the vocalists we were big fans of,\u201d says Louis. \u201cTheir records have been pivotal for us,\u201d adds Ben. \u201cI\u2019ve got this one white label with Blaze and Stephanie Cooke remixes on it and it has hugely influenced my production style.\u201d The tracks they\u2019ve made together are Chaos In The CBD\u2019s way of paying homage. \u201cThese people are the ones who started it all. They\u2019ve invented the wheel. We're just trying to roll it.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Deeper Life<\/em> whirls that profound love of house music and wide-ranging influences \u2013 from Brazilian to R&B, ambient to Italo and downtempo pop \u2013 into a serene, cohesive whole with their signature finesse. The result is an international dance sound that feels unmistakably like Chaos and ebbs and flows from the beach party to the club to the afterhours. \u201cIt\u2019s laid-back but still driving at the same time; it\u2019s club ready, but still deep,\u201d Ben explains. It\u2019s also distinctly Balearic: The brothers found a particular affinity with 90's Ibiza chillout music, being from such a \u201cchill place\u201d themselves. \u201cIn its own way, New Zealand is incredibly Balearic, but without the party side,\u201d says Ben. The album opens like a Cafe Del Mar compilation with the subaqueous tiki-jazz of Down By The Cove<\/em> and Mountain Mover<\/em>, and later the washes of choir pads and piano on Barefoot on the Tarmac<\/em>\u00a0conjure images of white sands and hippie trippin\u2019 under the midday sun. It\u2019s a blissful setting also depicted on the album cover: a painting, by a childhood friend, of the beach where they grew up in Devonport, on Auckland's North Shore, with a volcano looming in the background. Somewhere among this scene is a secret spot \u201cwhere we\u2019d go swimming as kids,\u201d Ben continues, who took field recordings of the location to pepper throughout the album. \u201cNow our friends have kids and they\u2019ve learned to swim there too. It\u2019s very important to us \u2013 we even scattered our dog\u2019s ashes there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marlboro Sounds<\/em>, meanwhile, is named for the holiday region where the Helliker-Hales clan would \u201cgo to fish and catch barracuda and blue cod every day,\u201d says Ben, and O\u0304taki<\/em>\u00a0for the place where their grandparents used to live. They\u2019ve sampled the sounds of the ocean on the album, as well as taken field recordings of native birds like the T\u016b\u012b, \u201cwhich has a sound unique to New Zealand,\u201d adds Ben. The ultimate litmus test, the pair listened back to A Deeper Life<\/em> while on long winding drives when they were back home, too, and found that it matched the tropical vistas. \u201cThe album really feels like it comes from there,\u201d says Louis. It\u2019s also a reminder, says Ben, of their tight-knit friendship group from school that has stood the test of time. \u201cWe\u2019re still all best friends. All I\u2019ve ever wanted to do is impress them,\u201d says Ben. \u201cThese people are still so important in our lives, they\u2019re our community.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Deeper Life<\/em> attempts to strengthen the bonds with Ben and Louis\u2019s forefathers, too. There\u2019s a song for their dad called Tongariro Crossing<\/em>, inspired by a hike that they did together, near the mountains that were featured in the Lord of the Rings. \u201cIt was quite an emotional bonding experience for us, which we haven't had for a very long time,\u201d says Louis. The track also features a nod to New Zealand\u2019s homegrown jazz heritage as the pair reunite with frequent collaborator Nathan Haines on flute \u2013 whose own album track Belo Dia<\/em>, from his eleventh studio album Notes<\/em>, was remixed by the duo last year \u2013 and another familiar collaborator in the CBD family, Isaac Aesilli, on trumpet. \u201cThey are masters of their craft,\u201d says Ben. (You can hear Haines\u2019s romantic saxophone on the classy, lithe house number Love Language<\/em>, too, which feels like a future classic.)<\/p>\n

The brothers hope that their debut evidences their deep appreciation of 90's house music, from David Morales\u2019s Red Zone mixes and Kerri Chandler to DJ Sprinkles, Larry Heard and beyond. \u201cWe didn\u2019t go to the school of hard knocks, we went to the school of Carl Cox,\u201d they wrote in one of their typically hilarious posts on Instagram. But while they\u2019ve built a hilarious persona on their social media accounts, their album shows a deeper side to them too. \u201cWe joke around but we want this album to be taken seriously,\u201d says Louis. \u201cIt\u2019s music from all around the globe, and there\u2019s a deep meaning to how it flows and sticks together\u201d.<\/p>\n","band_members":"Louis Helliker-Hales\r\nBen 'Beans' Helliker-Hales","featured_image":{"width":150,"height":150,"file":"artists\/photo-176.jpg","filesize":39097068,"sizes":{"medium":{"file":"photo-176-300x194.jpg","width":300,"height":194,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":41010,"url":"https:\/\/www.muzic.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/artists\/photo-176-300x194.jpg"},"large":{"file":"photo-176-1024x663.jpg","width":1024,"height":663,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":139514,"url":"https:\/\/www.muzic.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/artists\/photo-176-1024x663.jpg"},"thumbnail":{"file":"photo-176-150x150.jpg","width":150,"height":150,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":33688,"url":"https:\/\/www.muzic.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/artists\/photo-176-150x150.jpg"},"medium_large":{"file":"photo-176-768x497.jpg","width":768,"height":497,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":94004,"url":"https:\/\/www.muzic.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/artists\/photo-176-768x497.jpg"},"1536x1536":{"file":"photo-176-1536x995.jpg","width":1536,"height":995,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":264642,"url":"https:\/\/www.muzic.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/artists\/photo-176-1536x995.jpg"},"crp_thumbnail":{"file":"photo-176-150x150.jpg","width":150,"height":150,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","filesize":33688,"url":"https:\/\/www.muzic.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/artists\/photo-176-150x150.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"13","credit":"","camera":"Canon EOS R5","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1737271725","copyright":"","focal_length":"50","iso":"800","shutter_speed":"0.0025","title":"","orientation":"0","keywords":[]},"ID":"256008","name":"photo-176.jpg","path":"\/home\/muzicnz\/public_html\/wp-content\/uploads\/artists\/photo-176.jpg","url":"https:\/\/www.muzic.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/artists\/photo-176-150x150.jpg","full_url":"https:\/\/www.muzic.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/artists\/photo-176.jpg","title":"photo","caption":"","description":"","alt":"Photo","srcset":false},"genre":[{"term_id":43,"name":"EDM","slug":"edm","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":43,"taxonomy":"genre","description":"Electronic Dance Music (EDM) energises with its pulsating beats, synthesised sounds, and electrifying drops. It's the heartbeat of clubs and festivals worldwide.","parent":0,"count":391,"filter":"raw","term_order":"0"}],"location":{"term_id":34,"name":"Outside Of NZ","slug":"outside-of-nz","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":34,"taxonomy":"location","description":"","parent":0,"count":261,"filter":"raw","term_order":"0"},"linked_artists":[],"social_links":{"website":"https:\/\/chaosinthecbd.com","youtube":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UC_vqnSYs3Nilklu5Ok1GEjA","bandcamp":"https:\/\/chaosinthecbd.bandcamp.com\/","instagram":"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/chaosinthecbd_\/","soundcloud":"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/chaos-in-the-cbd","spotify":"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/artist\/0QOQc6jEsPX5Y45TV0hXQy","apple_music":"https:\/\/music.apple.com\/cz\/artist\/chaos-in-the-cbd\/394611406"},"contact":[{"contact_name":"Bridget de Launay","contact_email":"Bridget@delaunayenterprises.co.nz"}],"notes":"","artists-to-releases_to":["247556"]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.muzic.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artists\/247553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.muzic.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artists"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.muzic.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/artists"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.muzic.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.muzic.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artists\/247553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":247555,"href":"https:\/\/www.muzic.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artists\/247553\/revisions\/247555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.muzic.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.muzic.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=247553"},{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.muzic.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genre?post=247553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}