Chad Valley

Oxford resident Hugo Manuel first pushed his home-studio sketches further by forming the band Jonquil, only to resume solo work under the moniker Chad Valley. Around the period when Jonquil inked its deal with Dovecote Records in the United States, Manuel quietly posted a set of dreamy electropop sketches online that drew from Ibiza sounds and R&B textures. In summer 2010 the tracks “Up and Down” and “Acker Bilk” were picked up by Vice, Pitchfork, and The Guardian. While he kept performing with Jonquil, Manuel issued the self-titled Chad Valley EP before the year ended. The follow-up EP Equatorial Ultravox surfaced in 2011, and the full-length debut Young Hunger arrived the next year, boasting contributions from Twin Shadow, Glasser, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, and Active Child.

The more introspective sophomore album Entirely New Blue reached listeners in October 2015. Throughout the following twelve months Manuel toured with Blackbird Blackbird and Shallou and performed at Austin’s SXSW festival. During a 2016 stop in Texas his van was burglarized, resulting in the loss of equipment and a laptop that held recordings intended for the next project. He completed the remaining dates, returned to Oxford, and restarted the album from the beginning. The resulting third LP, Imaginary Music, surfaced in 2018 with an ’80s-inspired palette and carried the singles “Up Again” and “LA in August.”