Joe Dukie aka Dallas Tamaira, live with Fat Freddy’s Drop at Three Piece Suit, Amsterdam, 2003. - Sarah Hunter
In the early 90s, alternative music lovers across New Zealand embraced the UK, European and American sounds of trip-hop, downbeat and instrumental hip-hop, à la Nightmares on Wax, Massive Attack, Portishead, Kruder & Dorfmeister, Thievery Corporation, etc. In their slower grooves, sample-based sound palettes and nocturnal vocal stylings, several waves of ravers, clubbers and DJs found an ideal counterpoint to the uptempo house, techno and jungle/drum & bass sounds of the dancefloor.
Inspired by the sonic shifts, a generation of local producers emerged who were increasingly interested in riding the line between played and programmed music. Using drum machines, samplers, software, and musicians, they combined elements of live instrumentation and studio production. Working at a sedate but hypnotic pace, music makers from all around the country crafted atmosphere-led songs that combined elements of jazz, soul, and quiet R&B with the stylistic affectations of hip-hop, dub, electronica and ambient.
Here are 10 downtempo and downbeat tracks that soundtracked chill-out zones at warehouse raves and outdoor dance parties. They also found favour with student radio and popular cafés. Many of them were released by independent record labels such as Deepgrooves, Footnote Records, The Drop, and Loop Recordings during the final years of the 20th century and the half-decade following the year 2000.
Concerningly, despite their local prominence at the time, around half of the music included in this article is only available to listen to online through YouTube or SoundCloud. In the early 2000s, people used to say, “Once it’s on the internet, it’s there forever,” but as it turns out, that saying simply isn’t true at all.
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Sulata – ‘Never’ (1995)
‘Never’ by the New Zealand-born Tokelauan singer Sulata Foa’i-Amiatu, aka Sulata, is a perfect slice of jazz and soul-tinged mid-90s downbeat. By the time Foa’i-Amiatu released the single through Auckland’s Deepgrooves label, she had honed her skills as a member of the alternative hip-hop group Colony. She also toured with ‘Hip-Hop Holiday’ hitmakers 3 The Hard Way, appearing on their ‘Many Rivers’ single.
‘Never’, which won Foa’i-Amiatu the Most Promising Female Vocalist award at the Aotearoa Music Awards that year, paved the way for her debut album Kia Moe (1997). Afterwards, she joined the South Pacific fusion ensemble Te Vaka, which became a global touring force. In recent years, they have written and recorded music for Disney’s Moana films.
Atemeg – ‘Kina’ (1996)
In 1996, Obscure/Psurkit released a compilation CD of Wellington electronica, Skankatronics: Pure Wellingtronika. In addition to fledgling techno productions from Oblique (Bevan Smith and Shanan Holm), LRS (Obscure founder Simon Swain), and Clinton Francis, aka Isolation, Skankatronics also included two downtempo tracks from Jet Jaguar and Atemeg.
As the story goes, Atemeg is one of the aliases of Christiaan Ercolano, aka DJ Crispy Fresh. He started as the beatmaker in the early Wellington hip-hop crew Noise N Effect before later finding success in the Auckland house duo House of Downtown. Atemeg’s ‘Kina’ is a prescient slice of moody midtempo that points towards a production style that became more common in Aotearoa in the late 90s and early 2000s.
Breaks Co-Op – ‘Sound Advice’ (1997)
From my point of view, ‘Sound Advice’ is about as close as anyone in Aotearoa got to capturing the moody menace of trip-hop in the 90s. At the time, Breaks Co-Op was an opportunity for the rapper-producers Hamish Clark and Zane Lowe to stretch out and explore a more abstract approach to hip-hop production, as expressed through their hard-to-find debut album, Roofers (1997).
On ‘Sound Advice’, Clark raps with vivid conviction over knocking drum loops and evocative atmospherics. Two days after they finished recording Roofers, Clark and Lowe moved to the UK. There, Lowe became a BBC Radio 1 DJ and an MTV VJ before hosting the flagship show on Apple Music. He continued Breaks Co-Op with Clark in the 2000s, leading to two more albums and chart success. These days, Clark works as a musician and an educator.
Toni Huata – ‘Oho Mai Koe’ (1998)
‘Oho Mai Koe’ (Arise My Spirit) by the late Māori singer, acts practitioner and community leader Toni Huata (Ngāti Kahungunu and Rongowhakaata iwi) is one of those gems that was always hiding in plain sight. Produced by Flax Wax Studios’ George Nepia III, its synth-funk inflected te reo Māori sounds first surfaced as part of a Te Māngai Pāho funded compilation titled Tangiora.
Along with Huata, Tangiora featured two early songs from a young Dallas Tamaira, aka Joe Dukie, ‘Te Whakamomori’ and ‘E Mokemoke Ana Ahu’. Luckily, ‘Oho Mai Koe’ can still be accessed through streaming services due to its inclusion on Huata’s debut album, Te Māori E. That said, Tamaira’s Tangiora material, and beyond that, most of the compilation, has almost completely fallen off the internet.
Dallas – ‘Better Than Change’ (1999)
A year after Tangiora, Dallas Tamaira (Ngāti Tūwharetoa) released his debut CD EP Better Than Change through The Drop. Although it’s slowly sliding off the internet as well, you can still listen to/watch the video for its DJ Mu-produced titular single. Although it occupies more of a neo-soul slanted space than his later material as the frontman of Wellington’s Fat Freddy’s Drop, ‘Better Than Change’ still plays with the sort of downtempo played-meets-programmed feels and grooves that were becoming locally prominent at the time.
The accompanying music video is notable in that it was directed by the celebrated Samoan filmmaker Sima Urale and featured an appearance from the late Dutch photographer Ans Westra with her signature Rolliflex camera. Twenty years on, Tamaira revisited his solo career with a second EP, Flowers.
Sheelahroc – ‘If I Gave U Th’ Mic’ (2000)
Before Karoline Fuarosa Park-Tamati MNZM aka Ladi6 became an internationally acclaimed hip-hop soul artist, the Christchurch-raised Samoan singer-songwriter and rapper was one-third of the female hip-hop crew Sheelaroc with Voodoo Child and Tyra Hammond. Produced by Paul Bimler aka Confucius and released by Footnote Records, ‘If I Gave U Th’ Mic’s acoustic guitar-tinged sound put the trio on the map, paving the way for Ladi6’s solo career.
Weirdly, my first exposure to the song was a remix by the Wellington composer/producer Rhian Sheehan, which appeared on his debut album, Paradigm Shift, released in 2001 through Loop Recordings. In recent years, it’s become increasingly difficult to hear that remix online. Time passes, and the holes in the internet continue to widen.
Cloudboy – ‘Red Rubicon’ (2001)
‘Red Rubicon’ by the Dunedin electronic music group Cloudboy is as good an example as any of a type of trip-hop inspired pop music that was bubbling up across Aotearoa and Te Waipounamu during the ‘90s and early 2000s. Over half a decade earlier, Auckland’s Strawpeople achieved Top 40 chart success via a similar approach. In 2002, Bic Runga pulled off some similar tricks as well.
Taken from Cloudboy’s Down at the End of the Garden album, ‘Red Rubicon’ combines frontwoman Demarnia Lloyd’s smooth and sultry vocal gymnastics with a dreamy fantasia detailed by gently shuffling rhythms, psychedelic background noises and some cinematic jazz elements. You could have effortlessly dropped the song into the soundtrack of any indie arthouse film from the era.
50Hz – ‘Smooth Rhodes’ feat. Miss La (2002)
When the Wellington-based electronic music producer Jeremy Geor aka 50Hz released his second album Carbon in the early 2000s, most of the attention was focused on his downtempo/neo-soul single ‘Seek No More’ featuring Ladi6. To be fair, ‘Seek No More’ would have been as good a fit as any for this list. However, after giving things a fresh listen, I’ve opted to focus on ‘Smooth Rhodes’, which features Miss La from the Auckland jazz band The Torch Set offering up an updated interpretation of the 1940s American jazz standard ‘Detour Ahead’.
Before he released Carbon through Loop Recordings, Geor was known as an early New Zealand jungle/drum & bass producer. In 1997, he unveiled our first-ever full-length drum & bass album, Cyclehum, through his Pacific Noise label. Several years later, he released a 12” vinyl titled Amalga/Descent through the short-lived local drum and bass label, Breakers Wax. Whether working at uptempo or downtempo settings, Geor had the skills.
Shapeshifter – ‘Been Missing’ feat. P-Diggs (2003)
First released on 12” vinyl by Salmonella Dub Recordings, ‘Been Missing’ featuring P-Diggs captures the New Zealand band Shapeshifter during a crucial period of transformation. During the late ’90s and early 2000s, the Christchurch group was predominantly known for its instrumental live jungle/drum & bass performances. By 2003, however, they were beginning to work with vocalists such as P-Diggs (who quickly joined the band) and were folding elements of soul, jazz, funk, rock, reggae, and dub into their electronic soundworld.
On ‘Been Missing’ P-Diggs sings yearningly about reflecting on a relationship that feels like it could go either way. Wrapped up in misty synthesisers and a steady downtempo groove, the instrumental reminds me of the lush vistas I spent time gazing at while attending outdoor dance parties in the South Island in the early 2000s, most notably, The Gathering, Alpine Unity and Destinations.
Rhian Sheehan – ‘Boundaries’ (2004)
Taken from Wellington composer/producer Rhian Sheehan’s second album Tiny Blue Biosphere, ‘Boundaries’ astronomical dialogue samples with cosmic-sounding electronic textures and a chuggy-dubby drum machine groove and bassline. One part of a larger artistic fusion of acoustic and electronic elements, ‘Boundaries’ is as good an entry point as any into his first real venture into making a concept album.
Through the philosophical and science-based themes he explored across Tiny Blue Biosphere, Sheehan lifted off into a remarkable career as an award-winning recording artist, film and TV composer. In the late 2000s, he started composing music for planetarium films produced by British National Space Centre, taking his space-minded sounds into some quite extraordinary places.
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