Artist:
Paddy Free
Title:
Paddy Free in Dub
Label:
Dubmission Records
Released:
1st April
Back in 2008 Paddy released
'Karekare:
Te Reo O Te Whenua' an album which differed from his previous digital
dub releases as one half of Pitch Black, instead
placing the focus on the traditional Maori music of his native New
Zealand. Personally, I really brought into the tribal yet chilled
sound that arose from this project. He
continued this concept further
teaming up with Richard Nunns and Horomona Horo and
forming the group Nga Tae, who
fused
the traditional Maori music with electronica.
Additionally,
he
produced
the album and toured
worldwide with Moana & the Tribe who
fuse
reggae and dance with
their traditional music.
Eight years on Paddy re-visits some of the tracks composed with the
aforementioned groups utilising the dub techniques previously heard
on Pitch Black releases.
I'm
going to split the album into two sections and start with the first
of four Moana
& The Tribe numbers.
The first track a short piece entitled 'House of Strife' begins
with horns and vocal harmonies in a stereotypical Reggae style and
to be frank I wouldn't have associated this as Maori music if I
wasn't
in the know.
This
is followed by the
lengthier & dubbier 'Rangatahi' which displays much more of a
Pitch Black vibe with Moana's vocal chorus dipping into dub. The
Maori sound becomes more apparent with the use of shells and the
language with 'Upokohue' and the mixture of beautiful vocals tones
and spacey dubbed synth sounds really hit the spot for me. The final
Moana track 'The Whole World's Watching' begins somewhat like a dubbed out soulful gospel number
transcending into a more percussive dub reggae vibe followed by some
wonderful horn sections.
The
second section comprises
three tracks by Nga Tae the first 'Orohanga'
is a slow paced dreamy electro-dub with occasional chimes and
masculine Maori spoken word. The snail pace trend continues with
'Star Waka' however, the bass frequency gets lower nestled alongside
the haunting flute like sounds which I imagine are again created
with shells and spoken word. The pace picks up with 'Whanau Puhi'
which once again features those haunting shell sounds dubbed out to
maximum effect.
Review
by Woodzee
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