Moana and the Tribe

For my money the most powerful, enjoyable and important act on the mainstage at this year's Womad in Taranaki - and there were some over-acclaimed but perfunctory internationals - was Moana and the Tribe.

They delivered a thumping, visually powerful and cleverly calculated implosion of waiata, haka and electronica-flavoured soul-funk. Moana also won the crowd with self-effacing humour while shoving in necessary politics about globalisation as she stood between the side-stage signs for the festival's multinational sponsors.

It was quite some feat to pull together on Whole World's Watching, that memorable chant from the Springbok tour with a message about corporate rapaciousness, then bring it home to a dancing crowd with the primary school song Oma Rapeti (Run Rabbit). And we know what rabbits she meant.

 

That extraordinary and multilayered song - one of many by her in the past two decades which include Treaty, Moko and Ancestors - opens this dub-affected album where Pitch Black's Paddy Free, now a longtime Tribe member, steers much of it into a new genre of waiata-dub and punchy dancefloor-directed songs where politics and te reo slip in effortlessly.

Aotearoa and Seashell - both with Moana's heartfelt evocations of this fragile country, the latter coloured by guitarist Cadzow Cossar's psyche-rock, are among the standouts, alongside the ambient dub and echoed Upokohue (with atmospheric taonga puoro) and the soundscape of Ko Au. The terrific Water Peoplehas allusions to haka and soul, a yearning vocal by Aboriginal singer Djakapurra Munyarryun and Horomona Horo on taonga puoro. And bagpipes. As with Whole World's Watching, it successfully draws these diverse elements into a coherent whole.

The final song, Not Alone, is an uplifting and spiritual closer over shimmering guitar.

There are, however, well-intentioned but weak points here: Warrior Woman is affirmative but somewhat ordinary dub-reggae and the folksy House of Strife - co-written by Don McGlashan, Moana and Free - contains a pointed message about the position of tangata whenua in 21st-century Aotearoa but musically is mundane inclusion in this context. It sounds like it belongs on another album.

But mostly, this is a powerful and important collection and - although recorded in Piha, Rotorua and Glasgow - it's also Moana and the Tribe's best-sounding album yet. Highly recommended.