Nelson Evening Mail

May 2005

by Alan Clarke

'Sublime return for hometown kid'

First, foremost, there's the voice. It's a fine wine of a voice, pinot of course -  rare, exquisite, the sort found hidden in some wine-snob's cellar. The sort you might buy once in a lifetime, just for a taste of how the other half lives.

The top notes are pure and sweet, with a hint of wild raspberries discovered halfway up a mountain in late March. The middle register is astonishing, warm and smooth as an indian summer, with a subtle suggestion of harakeke flower essence. The bottom notes are rich as the best Swiss chocolate, food for the soul.

Do wines have notes? Or is that the way perfume is rated? Well, never mind. Hinemoana Baker has everything else going for her. Intoxicating applies equally to fine wine, perfume and stunning singers, I suppose.

The voice was there in full force at a homecoming concert of sorts by the 1986 head girl at Waimea College. It was her first solo Nelson concert since Michelle Baker began the transformation into Hinemoana some 10 years ago (home is now on the Kapiti coast, but her mum still lives here and, after hearing Baker perform live, I'm claiming her as Nelson's anyway).

What's in a name? Plenty, in this case. Hinemoana was given to her when a toddler by an uncle, following a family tradition, and she wears it well now in adulthood.

Any romantic notion of a sweet little mokopuna learning te reo in the lap of a favorite kuia, though, is quickly dispelled. It was through a university course that Baker really began learning the 'other' official language of New Zealand. Today, she slips easily and fluidly between the two, a strong and powerful flag-bearer for the way biculturalism is supposed to work.

Speaking and appreciating Maori clearly brings another dimension for a poet, singer and songwriter, in the way that learning any language brings new ideas, thought processes, ways of seeing. The way Maori words end in vowels make it rich fodder for those who enjoy playing with the sounds, as well as the meanings, of language. Having te reo can't hurt her work for National Radio, either, where she fronts the popular 'Waiata' programme on Thursday nights.

So there we are, anyway, 50 people in the intimate atmosphere of Fairfield House. On to a makeshift stage Baker glides, launching unaccompanied into a lovely waiata of her own, a greeting full of aroha and whanau.

These, in fact, are themes of the evening and her work. Her mother Lea is in the audience. Her father Val, not this time, but he's worked into the show nonetheless in the preamble to a three-line poem about rugby. He was a Maori All Black in the 1970s.

What else makes the night so memorable? There's a whole lot of personality, a pride perhaps in accomplishment, a sense of ease. When she forgets to plug in her guitar at the start of the second song, she immediately turns it to her advantage, dropping in some banter, playing the small but appreciative audience with grace and charm.

It all seems so mature, refreshing, lacking in pretension. There's a feeling of happiness and completeness somehow. The anticipated feminist sabre-rattling is absent. The messages are here, but much more subtle.

There's the quirk factor too, sparking off a lively intelligence, sense of fun, enjoyment of the power and possibilities of words. Rather than a concert in the traditional sense there are touches of theatre, poetry and story-telling woven in amongst fabulous songs and lyrics ranging from clever to inspired.

And surely no one anywhere is doing what Baker does on stage with a scuba tank, a bucket of water and a looping pedal, a device she uses to lay down and replay backing sounds, notes and harmonies that she then sings over the top of. All done live as the song is built up in layers.

An interval brings the opportunity to mingle and sell copies of her new CD puawai and stunning new poetry book, matuhi|needle – hard-cover, glossy, propped up by beautiful paintings and produced with the enthusiastic support of Lord of the Rings star Viggo Mortensen.

An image that clings is from one poem about a stream disappearing underground before hatching from the trunks of trees  - the yellow quivers of the kowhai. Profound, and totally New Zealand.

Another influence was being accepted for the prestigious master's level course in creative writing with Bill Manhire at Victoria in 2002. Baker boasts that in an early exercise she proved to be the course's most adept liar  - an essential ability for any story-teller. Whether her claim is true or not is, of course, academic.

You don't become a poet or a 'folk' singer if making money is your thing. You do it because you have to (though beware the propensity to label - this woman can rock with the best of them).

The concert ends all too soon with an encore that completes a circle - just Baker and that astonishing voice, unaccompanied, covering the Doris Day classic, Secret Love. More messages there? Maybe. As with most things, there are layers of meaning and subtlety. It's the poet's way, perhaps, to show rather than tell: to ease open the curtain without necessarily shoving the audience out the window.

Anyway, it's a beautifully original take on a lovely old tune that I find myself singing days afterwards. That perhaps is the song-writer's curse: it is often the familiar that resonates most strongly with an audience, despite the strength and power of newer material.

Baker, a finalist in last year's Tui music awards for puãwai, is often compared with Joni Mitchell but those good strong Maori genes add a warmth and richness to the voice, especially in concert.

Driving home to the sounds of her CD brought a reaffirmation of the power and magic of live music. Despite the polish the studio brings and the strength of the tracks, it fails to completely capture the full beauty of the voice that bounced and bubbled and sparkled around the room at Fairfield House. You really did have to be there.

In fact, it's hard to imagine a better place to have been on a Nelson evening. Maybe sculling that rare bottle of pinot with a special friend, or alone on an isolated south Fiordland beach under a blazing sunset would go close. Maybe not. You'll just have to go check for yourself, next time she's in town.

The G B Weekly

Friday 6 May 2005

by Neil Wilson

The voice of poet-singer-songwriter Hinemoana Baker filled the Mussel Inn last Sunday night.

Whether talking, reciting or singing, Hinemoana drew her listeners in. We shared in her wry, candid songs and poems, and, while the accompaniment - guitar, wind and percussion instrements and, for one poem, a set of scuba gear - was impressive, the predominant instrument was always Hinemoana's voice.

The scuba-accompanied poem, A Walk With Your Father, was a highlight. The soundscape fleshed out the metaphorical and arms-length description of a typically complex father-daughter relationship.

Some listeners were reminded of Joni Mitchell when Hinemoana sang, displaying her extraordinary range and clarity. Her voice was at times haunting and eerie, at other times breathy and whispery. Some songs had an easy sweetness, others were declamatory and staunch.

The only non-original song Hinemoana sang was Michelle Shocked's Silent Ways. It contains the lines 'silence is golden / words are made of lead / in the alchemy of love, y'know some things are better left unsaid.' Ironically the lasting impression of Hinemoana's performance was of goldne words describing and examining human joy, passion, grief, forgiveness and the ambiguous nature of our relationships.

Hinemoana says that she is comfortable with the personal honesty of her songs and the risk she runs of making herself vulnerable through that candour in performance.

'It's how I am. I'm a direct and honest person so it seems kind of natural to perform that way. I guess the poems are more dry, though,' she says.

Few in Sunday's near-capacity crowd at the Mussel Inn would agree with the poet's description. The poems often merged into the songs and offered the listener what all good poems do - the chance to share in a stranger's introspection and use it to refine our own.

In a review in New Zealand Musician magazine, Mahinarangi Tocker said of Hinemoana Baker: 'She arranged music to surround her breath with warmth and clarity.' 'Breath' seems such a tame way to name Hinemoana's voice - except when you think about it in the Maori sense. Tihei mauri ora - there is breath, there is life.