Bringing her music to the world out of Ōtaki on the Kapiti Coast, multi-instrumentalist Gigi Crayford artistically goes by the simple artist name of Hine. Self-described as “mokopuna of the once dubbed Crayford jazz dynasty” she grew up immersed in family music and culture. Two years in full immersion te reo Māori, Hine merges self-made taonga pūoro and a mix of jazz and folk into her mesmerising powerful debut single Ka Mua Ka Muri.

Mā te wāhine, mā te whenua

Through the woman through the land

Ka Mua Ka Muri is born from the experience of being an urban Māori trying to navigate living in what can feel like a post apocalyptic world as a tangata whenua.

It was sparked by a surreal, at odds gut feeling of existing in a matrix paved over matriarch reality that in many ways no longer serves us, while the blood and bones remember a bygone time of living in harmony with health, land & humans that truly nourished us. It’s an ode to the grief of living in a world where capitalism, colonisation, and urbanisation is concreted over our Mother Earth and thus solidified and perpetuated by us humans.

The waiata is a journey from alienation to connection, beginning sonically in the city chaos, the listener is overwhelmed by the sounds of roaring highways, whirring machines & general dissonance of the human world. As the song unfolds, through poetry and song we explore the grief of living so far from our natural state, reaching closer and closer back to the earth.

The soaring crescendo of karanga calling for balance tips the scales to the land we came from, ending in bird sound, taonga pūoro and a feeling of peace. Intended to elicit a feeling of home coming, remembrance and return to nature, the first language of this land which is bird song. It also contains city samples from Wellington Pōneke and nature samples from Zealandia woven in the beginning and end as sonic storytelling.

The process of writing this song began when I first connected with my māoritanga through taonga pūoro – traditional Māori Instruments, carved out of wood, bone and other natural materials. Through learning what they are, how to carve them and play them from tuakana such as Sam Palmer, Te Kahureremoa, Al Fraser, Ariana Tikao, Rob Thorne and more. I began to realise that they were a vessel to reach across time and space to the original language of this land and thus connect more to myself, my whakapapa and Papatūānuku.

The aesthetic of the song was intended to be juxtaposition, between ancient, natural sounds such as bird song and pūoro, woven in with highly electronic synths, buzzing machines and busy traffic, highlighting the stark comparison between the world that once was and the world we have allowed to paved over, travelling backwards through time, from future to past, Ka Mua Ka Muri.

My co-producer Michael Sutherland was highly supportive of experimental and more outlandish sound design which added aesthetic and another layer of emotion, confrontation – encapsulating the core meaning of the song. We had a lot of fun crafting sounds that enabled sonic storytelling to be a central part of the tune. One of our favourite sections is the halfway point in the poetry section. The beginning of where the scales are tipping and electronic music is giving way to taonga pūoro and the more earthly calm sounds of nature. The looping melody on the korg keys carrying us peacefully back to land and lush whenua.

Descendants of Ngāti Kahungunu ki te Wairoa, Tūwharetoa and Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga, the whole instrumentation was played by my family, drawing from the wellspring of whakapapa to support the story and journey in a deeper way. Drums were played by my father Greg Crayford, organ and Rhodes piano by my brother Miles Crayford and taonga pūoro made and played by myself.

Of course, there is a wholeness outside this song that includes the fact that this is the reality of the world we live in and there are many benefits to the establishment of urbanisation, governments, taxes, roads and what not.

I am of Scottish, Irish and French descent. This song is intended to voice a specific feeling of isolation, grief that can come with living in a world that we didn’t necessarily consent to but is still being perpetuated by systems of old. My sense as well as the hope behind this song is that we are in a time that is shifting in order to honour what was lost, buried and to bring it back in order to find a healthy future for us all on this planet.