Jordan Reyne: Passenger

By RON HANSON

Herald rating: * * * *

Auckland musician Jordan Reyne has returned to New Zealand and into the public eye with the release of her new album Passenger.

It is Reyne's fourth album recorded on a PC while she was living in Germany last year.

At the time she was uncertain of her future.

"I didn't know if I wanted to be a musician any more, just because of how incredibly difficult it is to be one," she says.

"It is particularly difficult when you're working in a non-mainstream genre such as 'darkwave'." Reynes' music falls into this category - a broad definition for dark, moody music with influences ranging from folk to electronic and industrial.

"There are quite a few invisible patches of music in New Zealand like the genre I'm in. People don't just hear your music accidentally in the supermarket and say, 'Oh, that's nice, I've never heard that before but I like it'."

Reyne tried working as a software engineer for two years but she hated the industry. Last year, she moved to Germany to find something greater than herself to escape what she calls "the nothing" - meaninglessness in the absence of purpose.

"I guess I was sick of being me and fighting the battles I fought," she says. "I just wanted a break from all of that."

Germany has long held a fascination for Reyne. She had been there once before and was drawn to its music scene and the country's dark and troubled war history.

"I'm always just amazed that people can do that kind of thing to each other," she says. "You can become quite engrossed in the stories of people who were there and the things that happened to them and it takes you away from yourself."

Unable to afford a laptop, Reyne dismantled her PC and took it with her. Despite strange looks from customs officials she entered the country without difficulty.

In Germany, she recorded most of what has become Passenger. In this album, she constructed a narrative out of the chaos she was going through, about big random events that were happening to her and the feeling that she was being buffeted by life. "The album is trying to make sense of where I started versus where I ended up and how I got there."

Passenger includes elements of found sounds - sounds taken from the environment and placed into the context of song. Consistent with her theme of movement, the sounds of trains, planes and traffic all feature.

"We're connected to the sounds we hear every day," Reyne says. "They affect our states of mind and the kind of harmonies that we hear in everyday life."

Life in Germany, especially winter, was harder than she anticipated. After living day to day, busking for food and becoming ill, Reyne returned home to New Zealand where she finished Passenger with the support of a Creative New Zealand grant. Back home, Reyne was pleasantly surprised at what she saw as changes in the New Zealand music scene.

"I was kind of amazed. There seems to have been some kind of turnaround in the industry. People are more positive and receptive."

Things are definitely looking up for Reyne. Passenger has entered B-Net's top 10 and Reyne also features as guest vocalist on Strawpeople's latest album, Count Backwards from 10.

Later this year, she will return to the West Coast, where she grew up, as one of the artists selected to undertake a six-week Wild Creations artist residency. Wild Creation, a partnership between Creative New Zealand and the Department of Conservation, offers three annual residencies.

Reyne will spend her time in Karamea, researching material and sound for an album about the relationships that New Zealanders of different cultural backgrounds have with the land.

"I sort of wake up now and think things are actually starting to work, starting to happen," she says. "I'm a lot more optimistic."

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