Whirimako Black

This is a rather roundabout story, but please bear with me.

Last week I had the very good fortune to win the office sweepstake on the Melbourne Cup. That gave me a few pennies to rub together in my pocket. The resulting friction was sufficient to get said pocket smoldering.

So, when I went down to Pakuranga on Monday to drop in some films for processing I went off and did a bit of shopping on the side. I indulged myself with a small impulse purchase from the CD shop.

What attracted me to this particular cd is a connection (love them as you might have learned).

The cd is produced by a small private studio in Mangonui, Far North, NZ. My "home town".

Reading through the tracks and notes on the sleeve, I discovered that the music ranged from modern Maori composition back to early traditional music from the Tuhoe peoples. The cd title "Hinepukorangi" gave me the clue - enough to make me look.

Before my father moved us north to Mangonui, he was teaching at a school in Te Whaiti, right smack in the midst of the Ureweras and the Tuhoe people. That two years of my life has left indelible impressions and memories.

There is the connection.


If ever anyone reading this wishes to hear some of the best modern interpretation of traditional Maori music, it would be hard to better this. It is not like Hirini Melbourne and his strict scholarly research and traditional recordings. This is interpretive, with modern backing on some tracks, minimalist on others like pre-recorded bird song, a stream and suchlike, and a capella as well.

I shut my eyes and the mist rises from the bush as Hinepukorangi goes to meet her lover Uenuku in the dawn.