Graham Reid: Looking back on what TrinityRoots meant

TrinityRoots' Warren Maxwell at the Big Day Out. Picture / Dean Purcell

What set TrinityRoots apart for me was their musical subtlety, the nuanced way they moved from what we might call roots folk and reggae through elements of waiata, jazz and pop to create something which was at times indefinably about this country right now, yet also possessed a timelessness, as if it could have been written and sung here centuries ago.

In that regard it was music which required no explanation. This was music you simply understood just by hearing it, music that didn't require the trappings of pop culture - although of course they made terrific use of video, notably for Little Things. TrinityRoots music was also life-affirming and positive. I have yet to meet anyone who doesn't like it, and that is increasingly rare in popular music which is often the forum for malcontents and unspecified rage.

TrinityRoots weren't all feel-good, however, because their music was often tinged with melancholy, a sense of what we as a people had lost, about what might have been. Yet, while they had messages - teach your children, unwind, stories for the soul and of dreams - they also loped along on killer, memorable grooves, or heart-affecting songs.

They had it all. And, maybe because of that, the smartest thing they did was decide not to tarnish the picture, and they've called it a day. No matter. There is nothing in the contract to say bands have to last forever, and better a band that opened a door for others to look through than one which blocked the view by standing there for too long.