10 October 2024 - 0 Comments

Mokotron is a Tāmaki-based Māori producer from Ngāti Hine, who spreads seismic waves of low frequency Indigenous electronic music. Exploring ancient futurism through music, Mokotron imagines a reality without colonisation, where the ancestors transition from the ancient world into the modern, creating futures of hope juxtaposed with the hard realities of urban disconnection.

2022 was a breakout year for Mokotron releasing three 12” EPs on Spanish label Electro Records, as well as featuring on digital compilations assembled by Crazed Behaviour (UK), Ovelha Tracks (Portugal) and Strange Behaviour (Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Wellington). Their independently released EP Tawhito was awarded Te Tohu Hopunga Puoro Mariu (Favourite EP / Mixtape) at the 2022 Student Radio Network Awards. Earlier this year Mokotron released The United Tribes of Bass, a landmark remix project, exclusively featuring Māori and Cook Island Māori electronic practitioners from throughout the motu.

Today Mokotron shares Waerea, the title track from their new album out December 6 on Vinyl LP and digital via Sunreturn. Waerea is accompanied by a music video created by animator Simon Ward in collaboration with uku artist Stevei Houkāmau (and made with assistance from Te Māngi Pāho).

“I wrote Waerea in the days after the passing of my father,” says Mokotron. “At the end of his funeral the brother Rōpata said the waerea, the prayer over the car that had carried his body, to clear away any lingering negative energy. It struck me as ridiculous – here we were saying the waerea for a motor vehicle – what about the waerea for me? Who would clear away the lingering effects of trauma and violence that would pass down in my psyche and DNA to my children? This waiata is not a lament, it’s about clearing away these things I carry – hurt, shame, belittlement, violence, so I can stand as my own person in my own mana.”

“My waiata are a sonic structure representing urban marae in Central Auckland, I use three instruments panned left, centre and right – pūtōrino, hue and koauau, to represent the three kuia from Ngāti Whātua who have supported me to speak on those marae. For Waerea I played these instruments to express the murmur of grief, the call of the rūrū representing death and a distressed cry of anguish.”

Waerea is accompanied by a music video created in collaboration between animator and video artist Simon Ward & uku artist Stevei Houkāmau (and made with assistance from Te Māngi Pāho). Waerea’s video captures clay spinning and carving itself into new forms. As the camera’s shutter clicks, repeating patterns are made and unmade, cycling in on themselves to reveal & reflect the kaupapa of the track.

“There is something so unapologetic and irrepressible about Stevei’s work, it is just a tour de force of mana,” says Mokotron. “Studying the history of the Māori renaissance, you can see that over the last 120 years wāhine have played leading roles keeping our culture and language alive and bringing back important artforms that have been neglected. Yet in bringing these traditions back to life within a culture that has internalised the patriarchal values of the coloniser, wāhine have been systematically excluded from the very art forms they brought back. For me, as a descendant of our founding ancestress Hineamaru, seeing a wāhine carving such unapologetic, undeniable and powerful work, and using, of all things, Papatūānuku, the earth mother herself, and kura waka, the source of all life, as their chosen medium, I am just in awe of Stevei’s work.”

“The collaboration on Waerea was effortless and symbiotic,” says Houkāmau. “Mokotron drove the collab with their kaupapa and kōrero and I felt my job was to then take this story and express it through the clay. Mokotron gave so much room to interpret and experiment that it allowed myself and Simon to wānanga, share kōrero and find a way forward. To have 3 artists that are pushing the boundaries of their art forms and they can find that spark, well that's the magic right, cause this music video is exactly that.”

“The process for Waerea was a little bit of trial and error at times and required myself and Simon to talk through that we wanted to achieve in each studio session and then find a way to make that happen. Carving a line 1-2 mm at a time around a circular uku piece without any markers or guides while also being in the dark surrounded by equipment was an experience… but we got there and it looks amazing. I'm proud of what Simon and I were able to achieve and I feel that we have represented Mokotron’s vision in a way that we can all be proud of.”

“I think the video is an amazing example of where we are at as Creatives in Aotearoa. It's a step forward with intention about who we are and what we do. I think Aotearoa as a whole can learn a lot from collaborations like this, where we have drawn from our individual backgrounds and found common ground through stories and experiences.”

Ward agrees “I learnt so much making this video. Stevei’s art form is new to me and it was amazing to learn more about the depth of meaning in the markings, materials and processes that go into her work. That matched the depth in Mokotron’s track really well, so it was a smooth process to weave the kaupapa of the song into the art and video presentation.”

Reflecting on the making of Waerea and it’s video Mokotron sees it as a blueprint for the future; “I was taken out of my community as a child and denied access to my whānau, reo, tikanga, whakapapa, whenua, marae, everything. But there were three dangerous things that are seen as innocuous enough to infiltrate the Pākehā world – Māori music, art and literature, and those were the things that kept my wairua alive. These are not songs or ‘tracks’, they are lifelines for people like me, trapped in a colonised existence, to keep their wairua alive and call them back to that which has been denied them. I’m happy with this Māori Trojan hōiho and I hope to build and dispatch many more.”

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Photo Credit: Ngaru Garland

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