After singing covers in high school, Chambers started playing guitar and writing her own songs at age 16. In 1999, while in California, she recorded an album which was never released.
In the early to mid 2000s, Chambers appeared regularly as a featured vocalist on songs created by Wellington-based electronic musicians such as The Upbeats, Module and Rhian Sheehan. Many of the songs appeared on locally and internationally released compilation albums during this time. Outside of the electronic scene, her key peers include Bic Runga, Justin “Firefly” Clarke, Jonathan Crayford, Dr Lee Prebble, Age Pryor and Andy Hummel.
In 2008, she recorded her first proper album Jess Chambers and The Firefly Orchestra with production assistance from Clarke and a cast of guest musicians including members of The Phoenix Foundation, Fat Freddy’s Drop, TrinityRoots, Fly My Pretties, and Rosy Tin Teacaddy. In 2011 she recorded and produced her second album Desire.
In 2007 Chambers recorded with New Zealand folk super group The Woolshed Sessions towards the release of their self-titled debut album.
Over the years she has opened for, or played alongside, Fleet Foxes, Bic Runga, KT Tunstall, Newtown Faulkner, Mark Lanegan, and Sarah Harmer. She has also toured solo, with backing bands and as part of live shows by The Upbeats, Rhian Sheehan and The Woolshed Sessions.
Chambers has performed across New Zealand, Australia, and the US. In 2008 she played at Womad and New Zealand music in New Plymouth and toured the arts festival circuit in New Zealand. In 2011 she performed in Perth with The Upbeats, opening for Andy C to 2500 attendees.
In 2008 the Green Party licensed her song ‘Island’ for use in their campaign during the general election. In 2012 the Green Party licensed her song ‘Hopeful Dreamer’, again for use in their campaign during the general election. Her music has also appeared in television shows such as Shortland Street, Go Girls, Outrageous Fortune, and Top Gear.
In 2009 Chambers received the Apra best country song award for ‘Stringing Me Along’, the same year her song ‘Island’ was a finalist for the Apra Silver Scroll Award. That year Chambers’s work with The Woolshed Sessions was also recognised through a nomination for best roots album at the New Zealand Vodafone Music Awards.
Chambers releases her albums on her own independent record label, Jessica Chambers.
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Dream Chambers
When Jess Chambers moved to Nashville in 2012, she intended to perform as a two-piece, with herself on guitar and her husband Peter Hill on mandolin. However her songwriting hit a wall. Her neighbour was a fan of experimental music so took her to noise shows at local club Betty’s and encouraged her to try writing with a synthesiser. This led to Chambers buying a Arturia MicroBrute for $300 and she immediately felt a new sense of creative freedom.
She took a new artist name, Dream Chambers, and taught herself to use sequencers to control multiple electronic instruments at once (synthesisers, drum machines, etc), which allowed her to perform solo, but with a depth of sound. It took a few years of performing live before she finally released her first music under this new moniker: the White Roses EP (2018), and mini-album The Longest Night (2021).
She then had the opportunity to supply music for Nashville ensemble Chatterbird, which uses chamber music instruments in a modern style. She hired New Zealand musician Sonya Waters (The Instigators, Avoid!avoid, and many others) to help orchestrate the work. The resulting show The Blossoming (2023) was praised by the Music City Review as “a stunningly organic translation of Chambers’s intimate and breathtaking work.”
Dream Chambers’ music is well-suited to composition work for film and television, which led to her writing for the short film Help, I’m Alien Pregnant and co-composing with Wellington/ Israeli Arli Liberman on the BBC/New Zealand TV series The Ridge. She also co-founded the event Techno Echo, which is a monthly meet-up in Wellington for female and non-binary artists to share their knowledge and experience. – Updated by Gareth Shute, 2025
