Blending the typically subtle yet evocative voices of traditional Māori instruments with modern instrumentation, an inclusive writing style and soulful melodies, IA create indigenous soul music. The band has been ground breaking in using taonga pūoro as the driving element of their creative process, seamlessly weaving te reo Māori and English lyrics into waiata that reflect on the sacred knowledge of past generations, while providing uplift and encouragement for the future. Reti Hedley and Moetu Smith talked with NZM about their latest EP, ‘Tawhiti’.

A renowned taonga pūoro artist and educator, Reti Hedley’s mother lectured about the traditional Māori instruments at the University of Waikato. Perhaps no surprise then that he has become an innovator for next-level inclusion of taonga pūoro in contemporary song composition.

Reti describes his late mother as being among the second wave of those actively participating in a broader revitalisation of Māori culture, laughing that growing up he and his brother couldn’t get away from the traditional Māori instruments.

“It was everywhere. It was in the house, it was outside the house! Whenever there was a performance, we were always there. So we were those kids who didn’t really understand how unique that experience was, and we were just very, very lucky and naive to the fact!”

Following his own path Reti became the lead singer/guitarist with genre-blending outfit Knights of the Dub Table, establishing himself as a musician, composer and audio producer. Moetu Smith, the bass playing half of IA, recalls they first met in 2011 when he was singing in a Hamilton reggae band. Reti (Mr Samysam’son then) and fellow Knight Cypher asked if his band could open for them.

“So that’s how we met, and I’ve just attached myself to Reti and the other boys ever since!”

“And vice versa,” Reti is quick to respond. “I think me and Moetu have been in probably four bands, complementing each other in different ways.”

It took a further decade for IA to evolve, but around that time Moetu also got to witness Reti and his mother perform together with taonga pūoro.

“And that just blew my mind. I don’t come from a te ao Māori background, so it was a moving moment for me, it was beautiful. And from that moment on I would drop little pestering comments to Reti about doing something,” he laughs.

In 2020 Reti returned to Aotearoa after a year spent travelling across the world, a trip on which he had taken with him a number of taonga pūoro.

“So I was playing a lot that year, and when I came home me and Moetu wasted no time, we went straight into jamming. And I really felt like the relationship that we had, both me, him and Turoa [Pohatu], who was our drummer and very good friend at the time, I could tell that we had a really, really awesome chemistry, and I wanted to approach them about it.

“And so one weekend after a jam session, I pitched the idea to them and Moetu was just like, ‘Hell to the yes! Say no more, this is gonna be awesome.’ And then we just went immediately into collaborating.”

His pitch was the idea of a soulful band using taonga pūoro with the express purpose of pushing those instruments to the front of the mix.

“To use them as melodic instruments if you will, carrying the major melodies of the tunes, or being the major percussive aspect of the song. Whatever it is those instruments are doing, they were going to be at the forefront. Since then, me and Moetu have always had that purpose. We always refer back to that when we’re composing music, when we’re writing lyrics even.”

The first challenge was a major – they pretty much had to invent a new sound for IA, the name they chose which means ‘currents’. Reti recalls a lot of their composing time during Covid involved the challenge of how they could establish a melody with the various un-tuned traditional instruments, and start the process?

“We discovered that it’s easier to find the melodies, find the rhythm, find the inspiration from these instruments first, and then work Moetu’s bass lines around that. Work our lyrics around that, work our songs around that.”

The then trio spent the summer months experimenting with the sound, Covid providing them time to develop that. Indeed the pandemic-mandated need to compose their waiata while physically distanced set a formula that IA has since thrived on.

In March 2026 the duo released ‘Tawhiti’ (the title referencing distance and separation), an EP in which English and te reo Māori lyrics interplay naturally, in a similar way that the ancient Māori instruments made of wood, bone, rope and shell are blended with familiar rock instruments like drums, electric bass, synths and other electronics.

The six-songs on ‘Tawhiti’ were composed and recorded during 2025, while Reti was again travelling on the other side of the world with his wife and son. Te Māngai Pāho funding of $50k for the EP project motivated them to further develop their online collaboration skills and overcome inconveniences.

“We had already put together a few ideas before Reti left, but then, yeah, the entirety of the songs were basically done abroad,” Moetu laughs. “I was in Ngaruawahia here, and my bro was in Greece… or Romania or Uzbekistan!

“I’d wait for the moments where I’d get a message from Reti, seeing if I was free. And then we’d jump on a call, and we’d sometimes have five minutes, and then the wifi would go out, and sometimes you would have the whole afternoon! So yeah, we’re quite a powerful duo writing team – we’ve learned to make the most of our time, and we get the mahi done!”

Discussions often begin with the song concepts, and how to flesh those out with the lyrics and structures, which parts will be in te reo or English etc. Reti looks after the recording process, with any electronic elements added mostly software-based.

“Me and Moetu, we wananga well, we discuss well, and I find if our discussions are full of depth and substance then the songs almost write themselves. Throughout that lyrical writing process we’ll throw each other ideas around instrumentation, what genre we may be heading into.

“What I think is one of the powerful things of our relationship is that we’re always open to suggestions, changing, critiquing, adapting and refining. We are never really precious about where the instrumentation, and the chords, and the harmony, is heading. We’re quite accepting of maybe not pursuing an idea if that is not fitting for the song itself.

Moetu agrees. “We’ve made it so that it’s not confronting, it’s not at all like a down buzz or anything, you know? It’s all positive and moving forward to what we want to achieve in the end. So it’s actually a whole lot of fun.

“It really depends where the waiata is going,” he continues. “Reti’s such a genius when it comes to these things. He’s been able to record taonga onto the laptop, so we can use real taonga in a synthesiser way. One of our earlier tracks we did that, and man it was just real eye-opening experience to where we could take it…”

“I think it also depends on where we are,” adds Reti. “I’ve got a number of synths and other analogue instruments, or we sometimes get to record in a studio. But mostly we use Ableton to sample in and use that sample to be the basis of a full synth and create chords from that.

“The electronic element, in my opinion, is actually a really great way to add a few more layers that complement any of the genres that we’ve been working on. They’re not necessarily the main parts, but we will reach for them because they are also very textually beautiful instruments that complement the tunes.”

Three of the ‘Tawhiti’ tracks, Pā Māori, Shine On You, and Rerehua (feat. Jordyn With a Why) have been released as singles. Among the EP’s remaining three waiata Petane was inspired by the tragedy of the 2023 Hawkes Bay district floods as Reti explains.

“It devastated the area of the Petane marae, which had a po of an ancestor, basically a statue of an ancestor. I wanted to create a song about that tragedy, and so I sang it from his perspective, him talking about his lands being overwhelmed by floods. It’s for those people from Petane marae.”

Tukuna stems from Moetu’s work in the Maori mental health sector, while Tuturu is a dedication to their former bandmate, Turoa Pohatu, who left IA ahead of ‘Tawhiti’.

“That song pretty much was saying, ‘You’re the man, bro, and we got you,’” says Moetu. “It was a very cool time we shared, and a very cool waiata to be writing.”