SJD, or Sean James Donnelly, is a musician from

Auckland Auckland ( ; ) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. It has an urban population of about It is located in the greater Auckland Region, the area governed by Auckland Council, which includes outlying rural areas and ...

, New Zealand. His music is a mix of pop-rock, soul, and electronic music. The name SJD also refers to Donnelly's touring band when not performing solo.

History

Donnelly has cited influences including

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) are an English electronic music, electronic band formed in Meols, Merseyside in 1978 by Andy McCluskey (vocals, bass guitar) and Paul Humphreys (keyboards, vocals). Regarded as pioneers of electronic musi ...

Gary Numan Gary Anthony James Webb (born 8 March 1958), known professionally as Gary Numan, is an English singer, songwriter and musician. He entered the music industry as frontman of the New wave music, new wave band Tubeway Army. After releasing two st ...

the Human League The Human League are an English synth-pop band formed in Sheffield in 1977. Initially an experimental electronic music, electronic outfit, the group signed to Virgin Records in 1979 and later attained widespread commercial success with their t ...

and

Soft Cell Soft Cell are an English synth-pop duo who came to prominence in the early 1980s. The duo consists of vocalist Marc Almond and instrumentalist David Ball (electronic musician), David Ball. The band are primarily known for their 1981 hit versio ...

. SJD's debut album ''3'' was initially self-released on Swarf Records as 120

CD-R CD-R (Compact disc-recordable) is a digital media, digital optical disc data storage device, storage format. A CD-R disc is a compact disc that can only be Write once read many, written once and read arbitrarily many times. CD-R discs (CD-Rs) ...

s in 1999 before being picked up by Flavour Distribution. After contributing a track to the ''Sideways'' compilation and playing alongside Phase 5 he then signed to the Round Trip Mars label. Second album ''Lost Soul Music'' was released in 2001. ''Southern Lights'' was released 2004 with assistance from government arts funding agency

Creative New Zealand The Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa (Creative New Zealand) is the national arts development agency of the New Zealand government established in 1963. It invests in artists and arts organisations, offering capability building programmes a ...

, yielding the single "Superman You're Crying" which met with some popular success in

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

and huge critical acclaim. Sean Donnelly and Angus McNaughton shared the 2005 New Zealand Music Awards Tuis for Best Producer and Best Engineer for their work on ''Southern Lights''. ''Songs from a Dictaphone'' was released in July 2007 and followed by ''Dayglo Spectres'', which is a collaborative effort with guitarist and fellow Round Trip Mars artist James Duncan (also in

Dimmer A dimmer is a device connected to a light fixture and used to lower the brightness of the Lighting, light. By changing the voltage waveform applied to the lamp, it is possible to lower the Luminous intensity, intensity of the light output. Al ...

), and was released in Oct 2008. His album ''Elastic Wasteland'' is entirely written, played, produced and mixed by Sean alone and was released on 16 November 2012. SJD has collaborated with several other New Zealand musicians, including contributions to Dimmer's successful album ''You've Got to Hear the Music''. With

Don McGlashan Don McGlashan (born 18 July 1959) is a New Zealand composer, singer and multi-instrumentalist who is best known for membership in the bands Blam Blam Blam, The Front Lawn, and The Mutton Birds, before going solo. He has also composed for cin ...

and Edmund McWilliams, he co-produced Don McGlashan's 2006 album ''Warm Hand'' and wrote "I Will Not Let You Down", which is on the album. Sean Donnelly formed The Bellbirds in 2009 with Sandy Mill, Victoria Kelly and

. He writes most of their songs. In 2011, he was part of

Neil Finn Neil Mullane Finn (born 27 May 1958) is a New Zealand singer-songwriter and musician. He is best known for being a principal member of Split Enz and for being the lead singer of Crowded House. He was also a member of Fleetwood Mac from 2018 ...

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project. In 2012 he produced an all-star cover version of

Chris Knox Chris Knox (born 2 September 1952) is a New Zealand rock and roll musician, cartoonist and movie reviewer who emerged during the punk rock era with his bands The Enemy and Toy Love. After Toy Love disbanded in the early 1980s, he formed the gr ...

's "

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" for the New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation. In 2013 SJD won the

Taite Music Prize The Taite Music Prize is an annual New Zealand music award event. A prize of the same name (sometimes called the Taite Music Main) is one of five to be awarded. It recognises the best New Zealand album from the previous year. The prize is named ...

for his album ''Elastic Wasteland''. In 2015, he released the album ''Saint John Divine''. Donnelly was awarded the

Mozart Fellowship The Mozart Fellowship is a composer residency attached to the Music Department of the University of Otago, one of the five Arts Fellowships at the university. It is the oldest full-time composition residency in New Zealand, and is currently the on ...

at the

University of Otago The University of Otago () is a public university, public research university, research collegiate university based in Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand. Founded in 1869, Otago is New Zealand's oldest university and one of the oldest universities in ...

in 2022 and 2023.

Quotes

"There's a disadvantage in terms of connecting to an audience because New Zealand is a small country and you can't really survive off a cult audience. But having said that, the cultural isolation and the fact that you probably aren't really going to make it add an imperative to achieve on a more aesthetic level, as opposed to a more financial level. If you don't think you can succeed any other way, you've got to try and be true to your heart." -- ''New Zealand's pulsing electronica'',

New Zealand Herald ''The New Zealand Herald'' is a daily newspaper published in Auckland, New Zealand, owned by New Zealand Media and Entertainment, and considered a newspaper of record for New Zealand. It has the largest newspaper circulation in New Zealand ...

(2001-06-08)

Discography

Albums

References

External links

www.elasticwasteland.com

www.roundtripmars.com

New Zealand Musician Interview with SJD

Sound.wav Music Interview with SJD 2015

National Radio sampler Songs from a Dictaphone (2007)

National Radio interview regarding Dayglo Spectres (2008)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sjd (Musician) Musicians from Auckland Living people Pajama Club members 1968 births Taite Music Prize winners