An Emerald City relish their recent underground experience, writes Scott Kara
A small audience has gathered at the entrance to Whatipu's main cave for an impromptu concert. Mum, dad, and their little girl crouch down, backs against the craggy walls of the old cave, as hypnotic and spiralling sounds fill the cavernous hole.
Deeper inside, away from the scorching sun and burning black sand of the rough and remote west coast beach, Auckland six-piece An Emerald City are slowly building into their nine-minute epic, As the Storm Comes In.
"It sounds amazing," says the dad, who was out strolling with his family and chanced upon this performance.
He's right. It sounds, well, almost perfect with moments of complete clarity - except for that muffled whirr of the generator outside the cave which is powering the instruments.
The band, who play a mix of eastern-influenced psychedelic drone rock, with seriously trippy tendencies, have commandeered the cave for two days to record their debut album, Circa Scaria, which is out on April 6.
They are spread out on tarpaulins, a series of bright blue and green sun umbrellas shelter microphones from drips from the cave roof, and the all-important chilly bin of wine is close at hand.
There's willowy keyboardist Sam Handley lurching over his instrument; guitarist Reuben Bonner, who sports Roman sandals, jeans and a long kaftan-like shirt, hooks into his axe; long-necked lute player Ede Giesen looks like a caped crusader with a heavy blanket draped around his instrument; violinist Felix Lun steals the show with his mix of studied and torrid bowing; and drummer Reyahn Leng and percussionist Rob Croft propel the song along.
This cave, a 15-to-20-minute walk from the Whatipu carpark, has a musical history as it was the venue for dances in the early 1900s. However, over the years sand filled up the cave, covering the dance floor.
It's a unique recording studio which matches the band's other-worldly sound.
Handley came up with the idea of recording in a cave because he thought it would "naturally suit our sound".
"I don't see it as trying to be different, just being open-minded. We came across this cave and said, 'Let's do it."'
And as Dave Holmes, the engineer and man who's recording the session, says: "They play music that's born from a place that's different from all the other usual bullshit out there and they're extending that to the recording process."
He's recorded numerous albums and never heard acoustics like it. "It's a big decadence. I'm in a cave that's as old as who knows what," he smiles.
Today An Emerald City will play until the sun sets, do a mini pack down, and Holmes and his assistant Dan Bosher ("He's like muscle man and carried so much of the heavy shit," says Bonner) will sleep at the cave to guard the gear.
Meanwhile, the band will head back to camp, cook pasta on a bunsen burner, roast some marshmallows and hit the airbeds ready for the final day of recording.
Fast-forward two months later and the album is done, except for the album artwork and a few tweaks - that only the band would bother with - to smooth out the sonic dynamics.
Sitting at a Kingsland cafe, Bonner and Handley have no regrets about the endless trips they made to the caves fully laden with recording gear.
"All that hard work, because it was physically hard work, and the two days we spent there were hitch-free," says Bonner.
"We were really happy with the sound we captured and what we achieved in that short amount of time, because it's not long to record an album. Yep, we could've done it in the studio but we didn't. The cave was about laying down the songs and getting them done."
"Fortunately," offers up Handley in his typically blithe tone, "we all kind of played pretty well."
Their music is exotic, all-consuming, and at times, like on the metal enhanced Mull Pasha, it's heavy and weighty stuff.
And also in the cave they had a 45-minute jam, a selection of which - 24 minutes to be exact - will be on the vinyl version of the album.
Compared with their debut four-track EP from last year, the album comes across as if An Emerald City has been unleashed. "Not that the EP is straight down the middle by any means but the album goes in far more stranger directions," says Bonner.
But what are these instrumental songs about?
Says Handley: "I think the beauty and vibe we create amongst everyone is that it seems to generate strong imagery. Like cruising over a desert with a hundred camels or something, and there are octopuses flying through the sky. But it's not just purely Eastern-based imagery either. I like the idea of generating images for people and for people to make their own up."
Bonner: "There are no boundaries. Just keep exploring and exploring."
This mentality is also part of the reason they decided to record in a cave. Although, as a backup, the band booked two days' recording time in Devonport's Victoria Theatre just in case they needed to touch anything up. They hardly needed it, with about 90 per cent of the album recorded at Whatipu and some percussion and sitar added in Devonport.
"We wanted to keep it as natural as possible," says Handley. "And I think it's more like capturing the atmosphere of us all playing together.
"Listening back to it at this point it's not like you go, 'Oh my God, they must be in a cave or somewhere.' But there is almost like a subconscious element to it that alludes it is from a special place."
And for the band the sonic sound adventure that the cave's acoustics took them on was just as significant as the camping trip itself.
"To us we can hear the cave, but just the fact that we know we went on that adventure and did this mission was just as important as the sound of it," says Bonner.
"And I haven't explored caves since I was a kid pretty much, so just to be out there and utilise something amazing like that was a really fun thing to do," adds Handley.
The band formed in 2005 and admitted in an interview with TimeOut last year that the fact they play this style of music came as a complete surprise. "I don't think any of us ever consciously thought that this band would ever evolve the way it has," said Bonner.
They move to Berlin at the start of May to see what European audiences think of their music. "We all enjoy doing it, and we just wanna go and give it a crack," says Handley.
"There is no issue of missing the boat," laughs Bonner. "It's not like psychedelic experimental music is going to come into fashion any time soon. It's about giving it a shot."
LOWDOWN
Who: An Emerald City.
What: Eastern influenced psychedelic rock out of Auckland.
Debut album: Circa Scaria, out April 6.
Where & when: Music In Parks, Glover Park, Auckland, April 1; also on tour with the Datsuns from April 9 (see myspace.com/anemeraldcity for details).
