Soundsplash - Tickets on sale now!
Posted: Fri Nov 3, 2006 10:18 am

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From tiny beginnings playing to hundreds in the Raglan Town Hall to headlining genre-establishing acts such as Big Youth in front of thousands, New Zealand's Soundsplash Eco Reggae Festival has come a long way.

Now entering its sixth year in existence, Soundsplash and Motherland Collective are set to release a documentary dvd which further marks its presence as one of the mainstays on the excellent New Zealand music festival scene.

With tickets already on sale for the two-day festival on February 23-24, the first 1000 buyers will receive a free promotional copy of this important slice of Kiwi roots music culture before the full version goes on sale to the general public.

Festival organiser and front man to Raglan-based reggae band Cornerstone Roots, Brian Ruawai isn't surprised his tiny brainchild has grown into one of the must-do festivals in the Kiwi summer.

He said he started the festival to provide a platform for the growing number of reggae bands to play their trade. As those bands have grown, so too has Soundsplash.

"I thought the timing was right and there needed to be a festival that represented this genre of music and what was happening in New Zealand culturally," Brian said.

"This documentary, I suppose, captures that and what had been happening in New Zealand in the five years previous."

The 45 minute documentary and accompanying 86 minutes of live footage from the '06 festival includes rare outtakes with Third World and Big Youth.

Footage of the first Soundsplash in Raglan's town hall, Brian's story of being able to afford to print just one A3 poster a week to promote it and the "muddy" festival in 2002 are brilliantly comical and add a real Raglan humour to this documentary.

But this is more than just a snippet of a festival that happens annually in a small but idyllic surfing community on the North Island's west coast.

This is a documentation of New Zealand social and roots music culture and of the growing consciousness towards nurturing the land we live on.

Soundsplash has encapsulated New Zealand's affinity with reggae and roots music that has grown phenomenally ever since the 1970s and Bob Marley's visit to these shores in 1979.

New Zealand can lay claim to its own distinctive sound of reggae and in Soundsplash it has its purpose built vehicle to represent it.

Big Youth says it best in the documentary.

"It's the seed that we (Jamaicans) planted and now its grown. It's bearing fruit and people are adapting it from all walks of life."

Along with Big Youth and fellow Jamaican reggae giants Third World the dvd features revealing interviews with leading New Zealand acts such as Tiki Taane from Salmonella Dub and Imon Starr from Rhombus.

"This festival has to keep going for a 1000 years," Imon Starr heralds in the documentary.

The doco was directed, produced and edited by independent film-maker Tara Durrant.

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Artists at Soundsplash 07:

- Shapeshifter
- Katchafire
- Cornerstone Roots
- Kora
- Ladi 6
- Blue King Brown
- Budspells
- Josh Owen Band
- House of Shem
- Deva Mahal
- Dubwize
- The Midnights
- Stinky Jim
- BrazilBeat Soundsystem
- Toki
- Renegade Soundsystem
- Mad Professor

+ more domestic acts and djs soon
*Major acts still to be announced.

http://www.motherland.co.nz/

RE: Soundsplash - Tickets on sale now!
Posted: Sun Nov 5, 2006 9:41 am

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There will be a distinct Australian flavour to Soundsplash Eco Reggae Festival '07 but also a sense of a homecoming when Blue King Brown and the Josh Owen Band cross the Tasman to take the Raglan stage in February.

The highly rated Australia-based bands, who all have strong Kiwi links, are to play New Zealand's esteemed and longest running reggae festival in the west coast surfing town of Raglan on February 23-24.

With major names still to be released, festival goers can already expect to see the best of Australia's roots music scene alongside staple Kiwi acts such as Kora, Shapeshifter, Cornerstone Roots and Katchafire.

BLUE KING BROWN

Following on from their recently released debut album 'Stand Up' and supporting Damien "Junior Gong" Marley, Michael Franti and Cody Chestnutt on their Australian tours, Blue King Brown have become the must-see live act across the Tasman.

The seven piece band's upbeat music, which includes afro, reggae, funk and soul flavours, earned them an APRA songwriters award in 2005 for their single Water and the band "can't wait" to bring their rhythms to New Zealand this summer.

Bassist Carlo Santone, who established the band with singer and guitarist Natalie Pa'apa'a in 2003, said their appearance at Soundsplash will fittingly be a reconnection with the band's roots.

Samoan-born Pa'apa'a's mother grew up in New Zealand and "Australia's Queen of roots music" still has plenty of family in this country.

"We've always had that island connection," Santone said.

"Natalie recently went back to Samoa for the first time in 15 years and this trip to Raglan is another chance for her to go back to her roots."

With their first sojourn to our shores, Soundsplash festival-goers can expect Blue King Brown's performance to be high energy coming with a strong conscious message.

The band and their lyrics often deal with indigenous rights and land ownership issues and Santone said those concerns would hold resonance with a New Zealand audience.

"We speak up about the many injustices around the world. We look forward to coming to New Zealand to learn more and share."

Along with two female backing singers Blue King Brown are : Carlo Santone (bass), Natalie Pa'apa'a (vocals/guitar), Salvador Persico (percussion), Sam Cope (keys) and Julian Goyma (drums).

http://www.bluekingbrown.com/

JOSH OWEN BAND

Josh Owen may have lived the majority of his life across the ditch but he still uses bro after most sentences and classes himself a Kiwi.

Born in Wanganui to a Maori mum and pakeha father Josh has lived largely in Melbourne since with a few trips home. He still has a lot of family living in New Zealand.

"Unfortunately and fortunately I've lived here in Oz," Josh said.

"I'm a Maori with red hair...and pretty strange looking."

While his bloodlines might be mixed Josh is clear on what New Zealand audiences can expect come February next year.

"There will be lots of funk, heaps of groove and some reggae too. Hopefully the bros will dig it."

On the back of a live album and a studio EP the Josh Owen Band have become widely popular in Australia on the festival and live scene. They are currently in the studio working on their debut full length studio album.

New Zealand audiences had the opportunity to see the Josh Owen Band on a mini tour this year in February while they were also part of the Melbourne leg of the recent Dub Conspiracies Australian tour.

The Josh Owen Band are: Josh Owen (vocals/guitar), John Clayton (drums) and Lucas Taranto (bass).

http://www.joshowen.com.au/

Tickets: $125 (+bf)

Available from: BEAT MERCHANTS Auckland, MUSICOR Whangarei, SOUNDS Whakatane, TRACS Hamilton, DETOUR MUSIC Gisborne, RAW MUSIC New Plymouth, REAL GROOVY nationwide or buy online at http://www.motherland.co.nz/

RE: Soundsplash - Tickets on sale now!
Posted: Sun Nov 12, 2006 10:53 am

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Mad Professor To Play Soundsplash

Soundsplash '07 and Motherland Collective are proud to announce the white coated doctor of dub Neil Fraser a.k.a the Mad Professor will be unleashing his sonic bass boom on New Zealand ears at this esteemed reggae festival from February 23-24 next year.

For those of you who are not aware, the Mad Professor is a dub pioneer and Britain's leading proponent of the music that first started in Kingston, Jamaica in the 1960s and 70s. He has worked and toured with dub and reggae luminaries such as Lee 'Scratch' Perry and Sly and Robbie, his remix of a Massive Attack album outsold the original and his Ariwa Studios have produced over 150 albums since 1979.

Bringing his mini Ariwa studio on tour, Fraser will have his son Joe Ariwa in tow to take care of the emceeing duties after previously touring New Zealand with the likes of Scratch, Macka B and Nolan Irie.

Fraser said his son's mike skills were very much of the new dub-step United Kingdom style.

"He's got the new style going on and I'm my dubby self...you could say we are the two generations of dub," Fraser said from his London studio recently.

"He's the new dub and I the old dub. Or put it this way - he's the new and I the not so new."

The announcement of Mad Professor as Soundsplash's first major act alongside previously released bands such as Shapeshifter and Katchafire and must-see Australian roots act Blue King Brown is already making this festival a highlight of the coming summer.

The son of a traveling druggist and chemist, Fraser first came to most New Zealanders attention in 1994 with his rumbling outtake of Massive Attack's album Protection.

A year later the Guyana-born, London-raised Fraser would grace our shores for the first time in his continuing love affair with New Zealand bass culture.

"I like the fresh air, the natural vibe and cleanness of the place," Fraser said.

"It is a very pure, serene place but most of all it has a special dub vibration going on down there...massive vibration."

He has toured here up to eight times since 1995. In 2002 he played a live set with a then fledgling Fat Freddy's Drop at Wellington's Bar Bodega. He has worked with and remixed Salmonella Dub, The Nomad and Katchafire.
But while the Mad Professor keeps returning to New Zealand and working with our best electronic acts, his phd in dubology began as a Guyanan school boy where his preoccupation with wire and diodes saw him build his first radio at the age of eight. The moniker the Mad Professor has stuck ever since.

In 1979 he set up his home-made studio in a London flat which he named Ariwa (a play on the Nigerian word for sound - Ariwo). Twenty-seven years later that Ariwa Sounds label has produced hundreds of records and some of the finest dub and reggae tunes this world has heard.

Fraser said he is in the process of knocking down this seminal studio and will rebuild on the same Whitehorse Lane, London location.

"It's an old building man. We need to make it bigger and stronger...more bass, ha, ha, ha...more bass culture."

Despite saying a few years ago that 12 Dub You Crazy albums was enough – the Mad Professor is set to release Dub You Crazy 2007 on the eve of his New Zealand tour and no doubt Soundsplash goers will be one of the first audiences in the world to hear it.

"I had to release more. People keep asking for it. We've done 12 now but I have so much stuff in my head and in the studio. I should be releasing at least one a year."

Dub You Crazy Pt 1, released in 1982, put Fraser's name on the map and the series has always been a go to record for dub producers and listeners alike to determine what new lengths dub music could be taken to.

This latest offering features rhythm twins Sly and Robbie, former Black Uhuru vocalist Michael Rose and Rico Rodriguez (the man from Wareika) .

"This is fresh stuff man. I can't wait to play it for you guys down there. Real pumping stuff."

www.ariwa.com or www.myspace.com/ariwamusic

RE: Soundsplash - Tickets on sale now!
Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 5:03 pm

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