21 November 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. In recent weeks Mokotron won Te Tohu Kaipuoro Toa (Favourite Solo Act) at the 2024 Mighty Aotearoa Alternative Awards and has been announced to perform at Boiler Room Aotearoa and Port Noise Festival.

Today Mokotron shares Ko Wai Koe?, the third and final single from their new album Waerea (out December 6 on Vinyl LP and digital via Sunreturn). Ko Wai Koe? is accompanied by a music video created by animator Simon Ward in collaboration with one of Aotearoa’s leading contemporary Māori digital artists Kereama Taepa (and made with assistance from NZ On Air Music).

With Ko Wai Koe? Mokotron switches it up, opening with a Roots riddim and sung lyrics before descending into jumping bass lines designed to put any sound system to the test.

“The first proper Mokotron single was the Guiding Star remix with Rubi Du, so this sound has been there from day dot.” says Mokotron. “I love Reggae and Dancehall, before this Mokotron project I was writing Dancehall and Lovers Rock with my haumī Simon Howden (as HighStakes). At the time Roots Reggae and Dub were massive in Aotearoa, so we focused on Lovers Rock instead, which was going through a renaissance in Jamaica with producers like Don Corleon, Arif Cooper and Di Genius. High Stakes worked with acts like John Holt, Sizzla, Capleton, Turbulance, Kabaka Pyramid, Konshens, Vybz Kartel and Popcaan.”

“With Ko Wai Koe? I wanted to move on from tracks Tawhito, Ōhākī & Waerea. I dropped the chanting and just sang with harmony. I dropped the emphasis on puoro and the breakbeat edits placed the emphasis on the snare rather than the kick. Ko Wai Koe? is more melodic and hype, it doesn’t have that dark vibe you hear on so many of my tracks.”

While Ko Wai Koe?s sounds have changed, Mokotron’s songwriting kaupapa remains the same. “I wrote this lyric over a decade ago when I was involved in discussions with an iwi to settle their grievances in regard to Crown breaches of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. We were in discussions with the inappropriately named Te Papa Atawhai, the Department of Conservation, known to some Māori as the Department of Confiscation. The Crown had very little land to return to the iwi - some of the only Crown land left in their region was conservation land. I watched as DOC explained that the lands could not be used for anything except to accommodate tourists, in one of the poorest and least developed regions in the country. Understand, some of the communities here are without basic utilities, like electricity, water, phone lines, cell phone coverage or internet. People don’t realise we have third world conditions in this country. The iwi asked if they could build a marae or plant gardens on the land, DOC said no, responding they wanted the land to return to its traditional state. Exasperated, the iwi responded that gardens were the traditional state the land had been in for 1000 years. DOC had nothing to say to that.”

“Conservation lands are not a sign of government foresight, benevolence or environmental prudence. In the Anglo-settler nations, settlers stole Indigenous lands and destroyed our eco-systems. The theft of conservation lands was the last stage of this process – once settlers had stolen and destroyed all the land of ‘economic value’, they stole the final tribal hinterlands and coastal lands with no ‘economic value’ and turned them into national parks.”

“I remember feeling a deep sense of rage, that public servants would have the right, let alone the gall, to tell mana whenua what to do. I wrote this down as a reggae song. The song had a chorus and verses. Sadly I lost the piece of paper I wrote it on and couldn’t remember the verses. Years later I had this breakbeat tune going, and suddenly the lyrics of the chorus just came out of my mouth, or what I remembered of them. That’s how the song came about. The post-script is that the iwi eventually chose to occupy the lands held by DOC.”

For a third time Mokotron has teamed up with animator Simon Ward for an accompanying music video (made with assistance from NZ On Air Music). For Ko Wai Koe? Ward collaborated with Kereama Taepa, one of Aotearoa’s leading contemporary Māori digital artists. Ko Wai Koe?’s visuals utilise nostalgic iconography to tell the track’s story and manifest ideas of Māori futurism.

“I love Kereama’s work – that sci-fi pop culture Māori crossover is just my kaupapa and era," says Mokotron. “One thing I really regret was I wanted to buy one of Kereama’s early Star Wars prints years back so this was almost like a way of getting over that. It’s not a random connection either – Star Wars was based on Joseph Cambell’s research, which drew heavily on Māori and Pacific oral traditions around Māui and Tāwhaki, Star Trek was based on Captain Cook and so on. There’s a reason those stories resonate with us – they are our stories.

“We reached a point where we decided we wanted Kereama to come up with an object that Simon could then explore as a landscape in a first-person gamer scenario. We couldn’t decide on an object but it had to represent raupatu, land confiscation. Simon stopped us both and asked us to explore the meaning of raupatu. I pointed out that raupatu is the rau of the patu, the sharp edge of the patu. The meaning is that raupatu is the ultimate, irreversible act of violence. Just as the sharp edge of a patu is used to execute someone, land confiscation is the ultimate act of violence that can be wielded against a people whose identity is grounded in whenua, in ancestral lands. Kereama responded that he would create a patu, a wahaika, to represent both the violence of the Crown through land confiscation, and as a symbol of militancy and action representing the mana of our young people to take up the struggle. That felt like a moment of māramatanga, spiritual intellectual enlightenment that arose from wānanga.”

“We've been cooking on this video for a while now,” notes Ward. “I'm a big fan of Kereama's work and was excited to see what would happen with us both having a similar skill set in computer graphics. After an initial zoom call Kereama went away and digitally sculpted all these incredible pieces plus some extra amazing animated concepts. Then I acted as the camera person, digitally photographing & documenting all the parts, collaging them together into a music video."

“In my experience - collaborations go one way or the other - they are either the worst or the best.... and I'm really thankful this was one of the awesomest ones,” says Taepa. “It was just super easy and it gelled without any ego getting in the way of anything - and the trust amongst the 3 of us was on high beam... just harmony... brilliant!”

With Ko Wai Koe? released Mokotron reflects “I feel like the last few months have been the best months of my life. Getting to work with artists you love on serious kaupapa and then getting to share the work with the community at this time when Māori rights and culture are under attack feels like we are doing the right thing at the right time.”

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Photo Credit: Ngaru Garland

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