The song of the whale

Why do whales sing? Their low-pitched “songs” and accompanying clicks and whistles signal communication, ‘echolocation’ and mating rituals. Humans are drawn to these huge mammals, but we are also their greatest threat. The atmospheric music on Panthalassa makes no overt statement about whale endangerment but a contemplative aura of lament pervades the album.

The imaginative practice of musician Al Fraser is based on taonga pūoro and as a maker, composer and performer he’s one of several Māori and Pākehā artists working on the contemporary revival of Māori traditional instruments. Here he collaborates with guitarist Sam Leamy and sonic artist Neil Johnstone in a set of a dozen short pieces evoking the profound soundscapes of the ancient Panthalassic Ocean and incorporating haunting whale songs sourced from NIWA recordings.

Panthalassa begins with Paleozoic Dawn, sounds rising gradually from the void into an amorphous musical texture punctuated by Fraser’s beautiful pahū pounamu, a greenstone gong. The voices of the whales emerge in subsequent tracks, a strident trumpet-like pūkāea joining them to bring drama to Glacial Imprints. The music is without a metrical beat, building structure from changes in texture, timbre and dynamics. 

In Hinatore Ariana Tikao sings, in te reo, poetry by Johnstone that offers descriptors for the whole collection - "swirling chaos", "moving through darkness", "a cloud of swarming points of luminosity". The final title, Mesozoic Extinction, suggests a cataclysmic event such as the meteorite of pre-history, but this evocative music sinks gently into its deep submarine world, sounds fading to silence.

Panthalassa  Al Fraser, Sam Leamy and Neil Johnstone (Rattle)

Review first published in NZ Listener 21 September 2019

Available from Rattle Records