TrinityRoots: True sound of originality

By GRAHAM REID

The substantial pile of breakfast plonked down before Warryn Maxwell progressively goes cold as he talks, sometimes forced to raise his voice. His competition, blasting through the pub's speakers, is classic hits radio with its dreary roster of familiar Beatles and ancient Rolling Stones.

It's a weird soundtrack to the conversation because Maxwell, Rio Hemopo sitting opposite, and absent drummer Riki Gooch - together Wellington's TrinityRoots - have made one of the quietest, non-rock albums of the year, one that even they are hard-pressed to describe.

True opens with an acoustic guitar track with audible bird sounds in the background, lopes off into quiet 12 1/2-minute stoner sonic landscape, which has dub and reggae inflections (plus a vocal snippet from The Banana Boat Song), and then there's the slow ballad Beautiful People. It feels organic, for want of a better word, and there's a strong, understated sense of Maoritanga throughout.

It's roots music, they say, which draws on all kinds of styles but none specifically.

"We wanted to make something you'd want to put on at home and sit down and listen to, and you'd go, 'Ahhh'," says Hemopo. "I actually love listening to it myself, it's sweet and cool. I think it's got wairua and sincerity, and it's like medicine, it makes you feel better."

Maxwell: "Our influences are wide: early jazz, country, blues, reggae and roots stuff. The hard part is not to make it sound like you are trying to do a song in every style, but we were taking elements of every style and making something of our own. It's our first one, there are a lot of memories in there, and we hope people can enjoy it for what it is."

Can't hear a single on it though, mate. There is much laughter.

"So?" says Maxwell. More laughter. "No, we didn't go out to write an album with a single on it. Some stations are playing Beautiful People - but that's probably because it's 3 1/2 minutes. But it's also a real change between all the guitars and drum'n'bass."

"It's also mellow," says Hemopo, "and gives people something to think about."

Much of the resonant vibe of True has been attributed to where it was recorded, a huge, historic house at Oruawharo, near Dannevirke, where they holed up with the ideas for the album and chilled out as they worked. It's a good story and would certainly explain the leisurely character of True, but it isn't quite that simple.

"Funnily enough we weren't tight at that time," says Maxwell, "and weren't in the same headspace. So we brought the recordings back to Wellington and started mixing them. But even then there still wasn't that X-factor, so I took them up to my folks' place in Raglan because I wanted to do some mixing out of town.

"But it still wasn't happening. Then our drummer left, and he was a monster drummer with a big wall of sound rock-funk. He's now in the Caribbean playing on a cruise ship and loving it. So we got our original drummer back and he played on it.

"We did it kind of backwards with the drums and bass coming in last, but it was good because then they had something to play against."

"For the final part of the recording we're all right there," says Hemopo. "What it means is it takes more than a flash house to get it right and tight to tackle that huge idea. So it's not about a house or place."

But it is also very Wellington in many ways, born of a city where roots music, particularly within the framework of reggae and jazz, is flourishing in bands such as Black Seeds and Fat Freddie's Drop, in which Maxwell also plays.

"I guess it's just time for a change and up until the past five years it's been rock with people like Shihad, Weta and Head Like a Hole. But it's human nature and things change - maybe the dub thing will go down after a while and rock will come back.

"We also don't have the choice in radio you have up here. We've got Radio Active, which has been very supportive, and then there's Channel Z, The Breeze, The Edge and they are all the commercial stations. So we're just down to a couple that play not just Wellington music but New Zealand music in general."

The result is people making and distributing their own music, which flies under the radar of radio and is exactly what the musicians want.

"It comes from the artists taking control and doing it at home, because you can take your time," says Hemopo.

And Wellington being a smaller city there is more communication between musicians - witness the guest list on their album. There's jazz keyboardist Jonathan Crayford playing clavinet, National Radio's classical music commentator Kate Mead on cello, Breathe's keyboardist Steve Gallagher, the Mutton Birds' David Long playing stuttering banjo on the loose-limbed Egos, a vocal trio and others.

Yet the album remains cohesive, and TrinityRoots are already considering a remix album. These airy and subtle tracks could certainly brush up well in different forms.

Already True - beautifully packaged in a fold-out sleeve - has had a good early reception, and this mid-morning breakfast comes at the end of a lightning-fast trip north to do interviews and radio shots. Before the bacon and eggs, Maxwell and Hemopo had already made three media stops, which pleases them because they were unsure how much interest there might be in something so different.

They aren't talked out, but it doesn't seem right to sit and watch someone's breakfast go cold, so we part company. Never much liked booming classic hits radio either.

* True is available now.