Tony Stamp reviews an Aotearoa/ Australia co-production from Jen Cloher, Tāmaki rapper Brandn Shiraz, and the return of Swedish maverick Fever Ray.
I Am the River, the River is Me by Jen Cloher
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Jen Cloher is an artist who takes their time between releases, and increasingly so - five years passed between albums three and four, and six between four and five - and that’s far from uncommon as a musician’s body of work increases.
What’s evident in Cloher’s music is why. Not only do they write songs that feel like old friends by the time you come to a second listen, but each feels thoroughly realised conceptually. And on I Am the River, The River is Me, they’re invested with deep thought about environmentalism, identity, their Māori lineage, and the way these things intersect.
The way Cloher begins the title track, addressing the listener directly, and casually, before empathising with them about the state of the planet and the toll that’s taking on all of us, is a great example of what marks them as a hugely empathetic songwriter.
Oh, and then they drop into beautifully pronounced reo, connecting the title of the song, a Māori proverb, with our collective identity.
They explained the album’s throughline to The Guardian recently, saying “We are here as a vital part of the relationality of earth and water and sky, and we’ve always been here, tending to the land and water.”
In interviews Cloher is quick to point out that they’re Pākehā as well as Māori, and grew up between Aotearoa and Australia. The album reckons with living between two colonised nations, and overcoming their fears of being an interloper to fill in some crucial parts of their heritage, beginning to learn te reo and aspects of Māori culture.
Their mother was Ngāpuhi and Ngāti Kahu, and a Māori historian, but Cloher says as a self-obsessed teenager they were oblivious, and while reclaiming that heritage is just part of the album’s thematic bundle, it’s the most affecting.
‘Harakeke’ gets its name from native flax, and references wahine toa and moko kauae, and while there’s a bittersweet tinge to the music, it’s ultimately relieved by the time Cloher sings “filling me up with the sun”, gently making peace with lost time and rediscovered roots.
The album’s overall mood is warm and celebratory, and starting track ‘Mana Takatāpui’ sets the tone beautifully.
‘Takatāpui’ is the Māori word for a same sex partner, Cloher drawing a line between their lineage and queerness right out of the gate, and doing it in the most joyous way possible, uplifting melodies piling on top of each other, even some cheeky brass.
Later, ‘My Witch’ is an equally fun exploration of queer love, melding synth-pop with guitar grunt.
Fittingly, I Am the River, The River is Me was made between Aotearoa and Australia, with local musicians Te Kaahu and Ruby Solly contributing, as well as Cass Basil and Tom Healy from Tiny Ruins.
I’ve read multiple reviews referring to the album’s lyrics as being uncomfortable, or resulting from tension, and while Cloher is tackling things like colonisation and the treatment of indigenous populations, they do it in the most generous way possible, suggesting a path forward while acknowledging the past.
When speaking with The Guardian, they brought up the Māori word kaitiaki (caretaker) in terms of tending to the land and sea, saying “You’re not separate, you’re part of it, and that’s an invitation for all of humanity.”
Brandn Shiraz by Brandn Shiraz
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Midway through the last decade a space on Auckland’s Karangahape Road called The Grow Room nurtured a collective of artists who musically tended toward hip hop, but didn’t impose any restrictions. Gear was shared, and advice was given from more experienced members to up and comers.
One of those was Brandon Rangi-Dixon, who makes music as Brandn Shiraz. He started to release tracks during the heyday of The Grow Room, when he was in his mid-teens, and now in his early twenties, has just put out a new LP.
In 2016 Shiraz was interviewed on RNZ, and said the Grow Room event Exhibition ll was when he realised there was a wider music community in Auckland outside the internet.
Since then he’s released a stream of music solo and in partnership with Lightskin John, as Shiraz & LSJ. They’re also in the MC collective Risera.
The output is extensive but perhaps not surprising, given that he started playing on the audio programme Audacity with his brother around the the age of eight, making mashups with existing acapellas and instrumentals.
For this self-titled release he wanted to honour his Cook Island ancestry alongside Afro-centric drum patterns, a mix that’s most apparent on ‘Youngin From Kuki’.
Recently Shiraz released an EP with Christoph El Truento from @ Peace and Avantdale Bowling Club, the latest endorsement from an established talent - he was invited onto David Dallas’ 64 Bars series, and earned props from Melowdownz, who said if he could bet all his money on anyone it’d be Shiraz.
On this LP he’s joined by TheWesternGuide, Ranuimarz, and on ‘Outside Outside’, central Ak’s Diggy Dupe.
In a Risera interview with Craccum last year, Shiraz talked about living in Rarotonga for a while as a kid, and bringing a stack of Cook Island and Hawaiian CDs back to Aotearoa.
There are obvious American touchstones on this album (it is the birthplace of hip hop), as well as African and Latin rhythms, and a huge influence from the Pacific Islands. Our local hip hop scene continues to evolve and progress, and represent various diasporas as it does, and Brandn Shiraz, an artist on the cusp of breaking through, is one of its leading exponents.
Radical Romantics by Fever Ray
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There’s a technique in digital music production called ‘formant shifting’, where an increase on vocals will make the singer sound like they’ve inhaled helium, and a decrease will make it sound like they’ve inhaled nitrous oxide.
It’s a practice used to full effect by Swedish musician Karin Dreijer, formerly one half of The Knife, nowadays better known as Fever Ray. On their albums, aside from just sounding cool, it enables them to take on different personas within the same song, and in conjunction with lyrics and artwork, attempt to transcend not just gender, but their own humanity.
From 1999 to 2014, Dreijer made music with their brother Olof as The Knife, a massively influential duo who altered the ways vocals could be used in electronic music, drew on surrealist influences, and were increasingly media shy. Their final show was called Post-Colonial Gender Politics Come First, Music Comes Second.
On Karin’s three solo outings as Fever Ray, they’ve obscured their appearance in various ways - facepaint, masks and costumes, even performing behind gauze. Their third, Radical Romantics, has them on the cover in a bald wig and white and yellow makeup, looking borderline monstrous.
The lyrics to ‘Looking For a Ghost’ explore this idea further, as they sing “Looking for person with a special kind of smile/ Teeth like razors, fingers like spice.”
The album features production from Olof Dreijer on four tracks, marking the first time the Knife siblings have worked together in over ten years, and those tracks have his signature touches, marching band percussion and squiggly synths, specifically.
Nidia brings an Afro-Portuguese flavour to ‘Looking For A Ghost’, and later there’s high octane techno from Vessel, but the album’s biggest guest stars are Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross from Nine Inch Nails, who imbue ‘Even it Out’ with an industrial smudge and some distinctive chromatic riffs.
That song is a revenge fantasy of sorts aimed at a kid who bullied one of Dreijer’s daughters at high school, which is specifically stated in the lyrics, and whether it’s true or not doesn’t detract from the ominous swagger.
But as its title plainly says, Radical Romantics is an album about queer love and sex, albeit with a sinister undercurrent. Multiple tracks are concerned with physical touch, including ‘Tapping Fingers’, which is downright sensual up until the point they mention “building a nest of pins”.
On that track Dreijer duets with themself, singing in different octaves and employing formant shifting. It’s their voice which is instantly recognisable, and safe to call iconic over twenty years into a genre-altering career. Even aside from that, this music is clearly theirs, simultaneously uplifting and creepy.
In a recent interview with Pitchfork, they said "Music works for me as a totally open space. I do not have to think about gender so much, which is amazing, because in real life, you have to think about it all the time."
On ‘Shiver’, another track produced with their brother Olof, their voice intertwines with various synthetic noises, until it's hard to tell which is which, their pursuit of anonymity and performance blurring the difference between person and machine.
