I made it in three days earlier this week, so hopefully it sounds all good. Made with Reason 12 point whatever we're up to, and mastered with T-Racks.
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A little bit of information for non New Zealanders who aren't familiar with te Reo Maori, the indigenous language. The song titles are all names of places I've lived in or near.
Pāuatahanui is an inlet north of Wellington, a couple of minutes drive from the house I lived in when my children were born. It's very beautiful and has amazing native and introduced bird life. The literal translation is "A single large pāua" - pāua are a kind of shellfish and a staple pre-European food. However apparently it was also slang for a man's parts, so as the inlet runs into the end of the long, narrow Porirua harbour, it's more likely it means 'One massive testicle'. Rich people park their boats there now.
Titirangi is the suburb of West Auckland where I grew up. In the 70s it was mainly hippies and artists. It's gentrified now and also polluted with the rich. Titirangi means 'Near the sky' although its current inhabitants prefer the mildly nauseating 'Fringe of heaven'. Maunga is hill or mountain; Titirangi Maunga in English is Mt Atkinson, the hill behind the house I grew up in that the suburb's named after. It's one of the highest points in the Auckland isthmus.
Central Auckland, where I lived in my 20s, is built on a bunch of small dormant volcanic cones. One is Maungakiekie. Kiekie is a kind of vine apparently - I had to look this one up. Before the European settlement of Auckland Maungakiekie had one of the largest pa, or towns, in Aotearoa. After the Maori were displaced it was made into a nature reserve, and for years was a landmark due to a big monument and massive tree which was visible for miles until it was cut down by lands rights activists.
In the 2000s I lived in a small university city called Dunedin near the bottom of Te Wai Pounamu, the South Island of Aotearoa New Zealand, with the best arts and music scene in the country. Aramoana is a small coastal settlement about 20 minutes north of Dunedin, and its name means 'Spring tide'. Quite New Age, although the town itself is desolate. It has a huge Victorian era pier, long disused, but is most famous for a mass shooting in 1990. It's still a very beautiful place.
I acknowledge the history of Aotearoa New Zealand and the rights of Maori, its indigenous people, in this work.
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