WHEN Karloine Tamati, aka musician Ladi6, first moved to Wellington, she couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about.
“I lived here for a winter and really hated it. I remember holding my umbrella up in Brooklyn and the rain was hitting me from underneath it,” she says.
Thankfully, shows played here in summer changed this impression.
“Welly’s always been my real party town. The nightlife’s wicked, everything stays open longer and people just want to dance and have a party. In Christchurch you’re going out to be a spectator at fights, but not in Wellington. People get off their face, but not aggressive off their face,” she says.
The Christchurch-born musician jumped onto the public radar in 1999 with hip-hop act Sheelahroc (which means “women are the strength”). She went on to build a loyal fan base through solo performances with Scribe, Fat Freddy’s Drop and Shapeshifter. In 2008 she released her solo debut Time Is Not Much and next month she’ll release her second album The Liberation of…
Freshly returned from a six-month stint in Berlin, Tamati’s now living in Auckland.
“We were sad to leave Berlin, we felt like we were just discovering new things about it. There’s so much to that city, so many layers,” she says.
The Liberation of… was recorded in Berlin, after a couple of months spent talking about the idea with her partner and musical collaborator Parks.
“In the last three months we finally said ‘are we gonna do this or just talk about what a good idea it is?’”
And so they did it. Realising the album was finished was Tamati’s top European musical moment.
“We killed ourselves to finish it in two months. In that moment we came back to life,” she laughs.
The finished album is a more confident and self-assured release than Time Is Not Much.
“The sound comes from all our favourite types of music, but it’s definitely us. We’re not trying to be anything else. The album feels like a completely natural progression up the musical ladder.”
The Liberation of… is released November 1. Ladi6, San Francisco Bathhouse, November 6-7. Support from Parks and Julien Dyne.