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Oceania: Oceania

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Point Music
Released: 1999
Time:
 59:08
Category: World Music
Producer(s): Jeremy "Jaz" Coleman 
Rating: *******... (7/10)
Media type: CD
Web address: www.philclas.polygram.nl
Appears with:
Purchase date: 2000.04.07
Price in €: 7,99



 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Pukaea
[2] Kotahitango
[3] Hautoa
[4] Hinerakatauri
[5] He tangata
[6] Kihikihi
[7] Haera ra
[8] Pepepe
[9] Tino rangatiratanga
[10] Hautoa (Bullet Park 7" mix)
[11] Kotahitanga (Bullet Park 7" mix)

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Hinewehi Mohi - Vocals

Jaz Coleman - Composer

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


Producer extraordinaire Jaz Coleman oversees the mystic grooves of Oceania's debut release. Featuring vocalist Hine, the ensemble captures the ancient flavors of New Zealand's Maori culture and language, performing with a passionate pride for all the world to bear witness.

Traditional Maori music from down under meets the modern world courtesy of Jaz (Killing Joke) Coleman on this intriguing showcase for half-aboriginal vocalist Hinewehi Mohi (pronounced Hee-nee-way-hee Mo-hee). Hewing closer to Japanese pop on "Hinerakatauri" than the operatic stylings of fellow Kiwi chanteuse Kiri Te Kawana, Mohi’s voice is youthful, vibrant, and very appealing.

Paired with sometimes dissonant instrumental arrangements and atonal backing vocals, Mohi's sweetness helps craft a complex, compelling harmony. By blending native instruments, chants and lyrics with techno/roots dance beats, Oceania’s unique sound combines national pride and spirituality while venturing into uncharted territory.

For example, the track 2 version of "Kotahitanga (Union)" features a female chorus of the timeless Haka, a men-only chant that is truly terrifying to behold when performed by New Zealand’s All Blacks rugby team. Maintaining the integrity of the Maori component of each track was essential, and songs like the proverb-based "Kihikihi (Cicada)" and mythically-grounded "Pepepe (Moth)" are true to their roots. In Maori culture, singing is an important part of self-expression and inner identity; on Oceania, two divergent cultural streams have dovetailed into an exhilarating contemporary expression of integration.

PJ Birosik - CDNow.com



Jaz Coleman co-wrote this music with Hinewehi Mohi (Hine), an incredibly gifted Maori soprano, who has written the lyrics and is the lead vocalist for the group. Oceania is made up of 10 musicians including the singers, (excluding the 'Haka' group).

It's all new music, using traditional Maori language, instruments and cultural themes and is unlike anything that precedes it. It is emotive, personal and vibrant in its delivery of a pure, natural and fresh new sound that should appeal to all genres of music lovers.

The album has a contemporary pop feel - and is perhaps best captured by the phrase:
"Oceania - Where Maori musical culture meets the modern world"

This musical culture refers to ecology, spirituality, plus women and leadership.

Oceania presents this musical culture for the first time on a world stage. Each song has some genuine significance and is steeped in cultural heritage and symbolism.



PRESS QUOTES:
"Deep Forest meets Massive Attack" - Journalist attending showcase



Biography:

"When they talked about New Zealand being ‘discovered’," says Hinewehi Mohi, the lead singer of Oceania "we didn’t realise it had ever been lost in the first place."

Many centuries before there was a New Zealand, there existed Aotearoa, the ‘Long White Cloud’ homeland of Maori culture and civilisation. The first Europeans arrived with the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in 1642. The Maori culture and civilisation. The first Europeans arrived with the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in 1642. The Maori, however, prevented Tasman from landing on the soil of Aotearoa, and it wasn’t until Captain James Cook’s voyages in the following century that the country finally capitulated to European interests. In 1840 Aotearoa become New Zealand, British Colony.

It is a remarkable testament to the resilience of the Maori people, however that Aotearoa has survived. It is the ‘Long White Cloud’ of the imagination - despite everything that has happened, Maori culture continues to articulate the essential hopes, heartbreaks, vulnerabilities and aspirations of the human condition.

And so to Oceania. This is no journey into the past, the last rites of a lapsed culture. Rather, it is a confident exploration of future possibilities, a vigorous celebration of life. Although the songs and music have been clearly informed from a Maori perspective, they have a universality that will connect and appeal to all peoples.

Oceania is what happens when Maori culture meets the modern world. The result is extraordinary contemporary music; a rich palette of new sonic possibilities all freshly stirred for our musical delight.

At the heart of Oceania are Maori instruments, legends, history and language, presented to the world for the first time via the talent of poet and singer Hinewehi Mohi and the lead singer of British post-punk band Killing Joke, Jaz Coleman.

If this seems an unlikely combination, then consider Coleman’s career in recent years. Even during the latter stages of Killing Joke’s tumultuous history, Coleman was collaborating with composer Anne Dudley on a new-classical project.

Six years ago Coleman left England for New Zealand, where he became the Composer in Residence for the Auckland Philharmonic. Coleman also recorded several albums for the Philips Classics label during which time he was fostering the idea of recording a contemporary Maori album.

This vague ambition was cemented by when Coleman met Hine (pronounced Hee Nee) at a traditional Maori blessing for the opening of a new building - in this case a recording studio.



Hine’s mother is New Zealand/European, but it is from her Maori father that she acquired her sense of cultural identity. With his encouragement, she enrolled at Waikato University where the academic curriculum centred on Maori studies. Among her mentors at the university was the lecturer Hirini Melbourne, a person who more latterly has become an important part of Oceania.

By the time she met Jas Coleman, Hinewehi had already established a formidable reputation as a poet, singer and as a presenter/producer for Maori television. Since leaving university, Hine has constantly championed the integrity of Maori culture and its contribution to the fabric of New Zealand.

This has often been an exasperating process, but worldwide recognition of Maori’s inherent worth has helped the rising perception of the culture. "It’s not until Maori have gone overseas, and people have been blown away by the uniqueness, that New Zealanders have realised how special Maori is," she says. Oceania is the next step in her ambition: it is, the first international Maori album.

"This is not a sampled album," says Coleman. "It’s a written album, we wrote it and played all the instruments on it with the help of the best master musicians of the Maori people - I’m the only Westerner, apart from string players and programmers, who actually played on the album, the rest is done by Maori hands.

"It’s such a different music; it is very beautiful, emotional music. I never know how anything will do in any market, but what I do know is that I will stand by Oceania for the rest of my days."

Oceania is thus not an album of traditional music, although it relies on Maori routes for its very identity. While Hinewehi has drawn on the right resource of poetry from her home to write all the lyrics and is the featured vocalist, Hirini Melbourne - her lecturer from university days - is the master musician and composer who, with other learning under him, has kept the Maori instruments alive.

Among the instruments to be heard on Oceania are The Pahu, a Maori drum fashioned from a hollow tree trunk. The Pahu, used for ceremonial purposes, is played with a hard stick. The Putorino, a double-barrelled flute sacred to Hinerakatauri, the Goddess of Music. The Hue, a large gourd, played by blowing across the opening. The Hue is the Maori equivalent of the flute the Pukaea (a large, highly carved trumpet), the Koauau (the most famous of all Maori flutes) and the Putaatara (a large shell conch played like a trumpet).
 

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