Anthonie Tonnon tours his album's live show first — one giant live music video (interview)

Tonnon and his producer Jonathan found themselves asking 'what's the point of making an album?' in a streaming economy where a record is consumed by breakfast and gone within a week. The Whanganui-based musician says the real value for him is the live experience, so he built the show alongside — and ahead of — the unfinished record.

Release the tour before the album: one giant live music video mixing archive footage, real-time typography and live camera, telling a Situationist story.

The show layers new music over archive footage, typography, new footage shot by cinematographer Theo Taylor and live video of Tonnon on stage, narrated live like a documentary. Its story follows the Situationist International, the 1960s French revolutionary art group, and what he calls New Zealand's drift from chaotic filmmaking nation into a country that excels at photographing itself — a drone filming the coastline for '100% Pure New Zealand' a few kilometres from a tired-looking town. The whole production is designed to travel in two suitcases.

The show is touring before the album is finished, with the single 'Executive Assistant' as the first taste — all per the interview; no commercial results exist yet.

In an interview published on BurgerFuel's World of BurgerFuel, New Zealand musician Anthonie Tonnon describes Cinematographer, a project he says blurs album, live show, documentary and film. Three years after his last release, he and producer Jonathan questioned what an album is even for — 'you can release a record on a Friday, listen to it with breakfast, and by the next week it's gone' — and decided to flip the process: the live experience comes first.

He describes the show as 'essentially like one big live music video': performing against moving images that combine archive footage, typography, new footage from cinematographer Theo Taylor and live video of himself, while telling the story in person rather than appearing on screen. The narrative follows the Situationist International and their attempt to 'take over the world', which Tonnon uses to ask what happens when a country gets so good at making itself look good that it stops fixing what needs fixing.

The first taste is the single 'Executive Assistant', which he says is about the New Zealand love of being 'ideas people' — having the big idea while someone else does the grind. He is blunt that the hard work cannot be outsourced: the record is still unfinished, but the show goes out first, built small enough to tour in two suitcases.

A concrete inverted release model — tour first, album later — taken by a working musician, not a label experiment.

Specific craft on record: archive footage, live typography, Theo Taylor's footage, two-suitcase portability.

A named intellectual spine (the Situationist International) tied to a present-tense argument about image and reality.

Everything is attributed to the artist in interview form, including what does not exist yet.

When streaming makes recordings disposable, the scarce product is the room: build the live experience first and let the album chase it.

As of the 7 October 2026 interview, Cinematographer the record is still unfinished and the live show is the leading edge; Tonnon says the album and further music will follow the tour. Whether the live-first model changes his release economics remains to be seen.