Rangatira

A collaboration that pairs various traditional Maori instruments (ngā taonga pūoro) with percussion, Rangatira brings together two respected New Zealand musicians, drummer Riki Gooch and multi­instrumentalist Alistair Fraser. A founding member of veteran outfit Trinity Roots, Gooch has also backed Kiwi acts Fat Freddy’s Drop and Fly My Pretties. Fraser has been researching, creating, composing and performing with ngā taonga pūoro since 1999, introducing their ancient and unique organic sounds to a variety of arts practices. Combining their skills here in memory of late musician and mutual friend, Eddie Tutaki, who originally introduced them, together they’ve channelled their shared grief into an inspired, seven-track, nature-based soundscape. Fraser’s wide array of taonga pūoro sounds – varying from blown flutes and other instruments made from shell, wood, stone and grasses – merges seamlessly with Gooch’s ever-imaginative percussion patterns and rhythms. Experimental squeaks, rattles, horn blasts, cymbals and whooshing drones permeate, as if inspired by Tibetan ceremonies (‘I Te Rā Ki Te Pō’, ‘Ngā Tūhono’), Indonesian gamelan (‘Tutaki’), and ambient bird calls (‘Manu Tioriori’), but in fact are all intrinsically Aotearoan. Rangatira (a high-ranking Maori chief) is a fitting tribute to the loss of a dear friend, that creatively releases his spirit into the ethers.