RECOMMENDED RECORD: Riki Pirihi and Abigail Aroha Jensen: Tūpiki (Audio Foundation/digital outlets)

 |   |  1 min read

Rangi-tauru-nui
RECOMMENDED RECORD: Riki Pirihi and Abigail Aroha Jensen: Tūpiki (Audio Foundation/digital outlets)

From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this reissue which comes in a gatefold sleeve by artist Susan Te Kahurangi-King, with a download code and with an insert sheet which outlines the steps of Maui and how these performers pulled them together into the concept..

Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . .

This ambitious and utterly absorbing album exists at the interface of concept album, spiritual exploration, cultural signifier and atmospheric experimentalism.

And all are in subtle balance.

Multi-instrumentalist Jensen on taonga pūoro, bells, gongs and electronics (among other things) and percussion player Pirihi (AKA Riki Gooch, also on selected taonga pūoro) recorded this during a residency at the Audio Foundation in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland with live electronic manipulations by Matt Gunn.

0037992433_10So there is an organic, evolving nature to the work which stretches across 12 distinct pieces (each 3.33 long), each one reflecting the steps Maui climbed to collect the baskets of knowledge.

From the opening sounds which convey bird song, the bush and the temporal world the music and inventive sound manipulations invoke and evoke spiritual states of being which can be calming (the rhythmic cycling of Rangi-parauri, healing), trance-inducing like Indonesian gamelan (Rangi-tauru-nui which closes the first side of the vinyl) or assertive (the vigorous percussion-driven Rangi-matawai).

Rangi-te-wawana brings in a lengthy sample of a Maori choir with Pirihi's sensitive drumming.

0037992435_10This is an album to immerse yourself in and allow these ancient and modern sounds to give you pause to reflect on the story being told (which you may need to look up but it's worth the small effort).

We recommend this on vinyl because it comes in a gatefold sleeve by Susan Te Kahurangi-King, a download code and with an insert sheet which outlines the steps of Maui and how these performers pulled them together into the concept.

.

You can hear and buy this album digitally and on vinyl at bandcamp here


Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Cultural Elsewhere articles index

LORETTA LUX PHOTOGRAPHER: A disturbing childhood

LORETTA LUX PHOTOGRAPHER: A disturbing childhood

The child looks strange somehow. There is something you cannot put your finger on. The head slightly too big, the pupils of the eyes a little too penetrating, perhaps? The image radiates silence,... > Read more

THE NEW ARCHITECTURE OF OSLO, PART TWO (2017): The Tjuvholmen district

THE NEW ARCHITECTURE OF OSLO, PART TWO (2017): The Tjuvholmen district

In the first part of this photo essay-cum-envy tourism look at the new architecture of Oslo, we turned the camera onto the small and developing area known as Barcode which is emerging behind the... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . LORRAINE CROSBY: To Hell, and back to the bingo halls

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . LORRAINE CROSBY: To Hell, and back to the bingo halls

When Simon Cowell kicked Lorraine Crosby off the second round of the UK X Factor competition in 2005 saying she lacked “star quality”, he may well have been right. But she could... > Read more

John Abercrombie Quartet: Within a Song (ECM/Ode)

John Abercrombie Quartet: Within a Song (ECM/Ode)

Although we look back on the Sixties as being a decade of remarkable invention and vibrancy in jazz -- through Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman and into... > Read more