Saxophone ace escapes to Featherston

Eight weeks ago sax assassin Warryn Maxwell fled the city. A sizeable south Wairarapa section gave Maxwell and his partner Ange more bang for their buck than Wellington, and room enough for their 18-month old daughter Lily to grow where the wind moves the soul not just the scenery.
"Featherston as home was a way to escape the concrete and the clutter. We're just over the hill when I need to go to work in the city and I love the wind ? it's like the gods letting you know you're not totally in control."
Maxwell, 36, was yesterday on his way to Wellington to accept an inaugural Arts Foundation New Generation Award of $25,000 alongside four other New Zealand artists, for his work since graduating in the mid-1990s after studying jazz at the acclaimed Conservatorium of Music in Wellington, where he has also taught.
Maxwell holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Massey University as well and has scored music for short films Turangawaewae and Run, and worked in theatre sound design.
A multi-instrumentalist, singer, composer, and arranger, Maxwell has tracked his way through several celebrated bands including as frontman for soul reggae unit Trinity Roots and leader of Little Bushmen, a psychedelic blues quartet who are releasing their debut album, The Onus of Sand, this month.
His greatest success commercially so far has come as saxophonist in the three-piece horn section of reggae roots dub band, Fat Freddy's Drop.
The seven-member Freddy family were in London a year ago ? after the release of their 2005 debut studio album Based On A True Story ? and picked up the Worldwide Album Of The Year at the Radio 1 Gilles Peterson Worldwide Music Awards 2005, as voted by fans worldwide that tune in to the BBC show.
Hitting the market on CD and double gatefold vinyl, the album was released under the band's own label and recorded at their Wellington studio of the same name, The Drop.
The album ? recorded and engineered over 18 months at The Drop, peppered with tours across the country and to Britain and Europe ? snatched a fistful of Tui Awards at the 2005 New Zealand Music Awards including Album of the Year, Best Aotearoa Roots Album, Best Group and the People's Choice Award.
When the album was officially released in New Zealand, in May last year, it shipped gold on the first day, making history as the first independently distributed album to bullet to the top of the NZ Album Charts.
Off the back of the Tui Awards, the album reclaimed the number one spot again in November of that year. The long player album sold platinum, times five (150,000 units) at home and has also been released to critical acclaim in Australia, Britain, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, France, Italy and Holland.
Despite capturing the Worldwide Album of the Year accolade, he said, the title did not translate into units sold abroad, selling only 20,000 across Europe.
Maxwell has already from his Featherston home composed the 30-second soundtrack for the latest Te Mana Maori television adverts, using MP3 files broadbanded between his new home and Saatchi & Saatchi in Auckland.
"Some of the work I'm doing can be done from anywhere, so there is no real industry downside living here at all."
The property may soon boast a home studio to join the two houses already on site, including a cottage the qualified carpenter is renovating for his parents Ron and Barbara after years ago "taking up a trade in case the music fell through".
"Mum and Dad here too makes it all how it's supposed to be, and we have Lily's whenua (placenta) that we're going to bury up in the hills so she has a true bond to the valley, a true home.
"Moving here is about putting down roots, for us all."