Mahurangi

About

Mahurangi is the second album from Riki Gooch Pirihi and Alistair Fraser. This album broadens the sound palette of the duo’s original stylings to now include Riki on modular synths as well as drums and percussion. Alistair and Riki have used these new sounds to enable them to converse in music both with each other, and with the lands that inspired the album.

This album is inspired by Mahurangi, the ancestral lands of Riki. Having this whenua as a touchstone and in many ways a living score, has allowed the pair to move towards a post-genre musical form where percussion, modular synths and ngā taonga pūoro are able to communicate their rangi, in a musical space that pushes experimentation, and expression of belonging to a part of something deeper and wider than ourselves. With the weaving together of Alistair’s ngā taonga pūoro to provide sonic ties to the sound world of te ao tawhito, this album of music combines percussion with the ancestral in a way that allows the music to reveal what has been hidden for so long.