Elsewhere - Our slice of the Pacific

Reviewed by GRAHAM REID

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Pacific Nation Volume One

(Pacific Nation/BMG)

Among the more ill-informed discussion about the music quota has been whether there's enough "quality" New Zealand music out there even to fill the oft-advocated 10 per cent.

Those who ask -- middle-aged politicians, columnists and radio people with a financial investment in the status quo -- often seem the least positioned to actually know, let alone be genuinely interested enough to try to find out.

The answer is obvious. But it was a little sad to even hear the question raised, especially when B*Witched were causing such a ripple in our cosmos.

But if you're genuinely asking, yes, there's enough quality New Zealand music out there of all persuasions, thanks. You could programme around the contents of this album, Che-Fu's 2 b S. Pacific, and the recent Aotearoa Hip-Hop and Deepgroove's Sofa So Good compilations alone.

And let's dare anyone -- but they have to have listened to them, obviously -- to question that.

This consistently interesting 11-track compilation is of Pasifika musicians working the spectrum of possibilities between traditional song and hip-hop, and log drums and synthesisers.

And there's a telling mission statement in the credit from Pati Umaga of Pacific Nation: "This album will be the beginning of our own interpretation of contemporary Pacific music without anyone else interpreting it for us."

It's only a matter of time before the sound of contemporary Pacific and Maori artists, if they want it, takes itself further afield and gets deserved recognition. It would be nice to think it might have gained it here first, however.

Te Vaka have already toured for five months in Europe with their blend of polished and professionally presented traditional Pacific dance and pop programming. But it's a measure of the strength of the material elsewhere here that Te Vaka's log-drum pop passes by almost unnoticed in the context of the CB's late-50s Philly doo-wop soul-meets-Polynesia that wipes the floor with those faux-backstreet Boyzbands, and the slow Samoan retro-soul of Kabase with Lole on the gorgeous Back to Paradise.

Cydel's Nesian Queen is a sweeping slice of yearning love and promise -- like an early Prince ballad in places -- from two interlocking voices out of Otara.

And the Samms come off as pure exotica as they sing a traditional Samoan chant over a lap of chipping Tex-Mex sounding guitars, a loping bass-line and punctuating Pacific percussion. Someone should deep dub this one.

The album is bookended by Michele Rounds' Era Bini Tu, a mesmerising Fijian love song which gets an extra updraught of keyboards and a rush of log drums in the equally excellent remix at the end.

So yes, this collection could easily be presented as evidence in the quota issue. But that would be a pity because it's unfair to compare anyone here with the towering talents of offshore artists like, oh say, B*Witched.

And yes, this tells us about where we are in the world. But actually it's just terrific music on its own account, and well produced, too. Can't ask for less than that people, just get to hear it.

And it breathes summer.
****

--Weekend TimeOut, 31/10/98