First Published on www.13thfloor.co.nz
A Traveller’s Tale, Trip To The Moon’s sixth studio album, is the essence of over 3 year’s solid work claims Trevor Reekie. Reekie along with multi-instrumentalist Tom Ludvigson has been recording their own unique version of trip-hop jazz and fusion since before the turn of the decade. A few day’s before its release Tim Gruar talked to Reekie over the phone from Auckland about the album’s long gestation period.
“It’s always a long time coming, these albums. Or put another way – 36 months of Sundays lost to this project – to conceptualize, compose, re-contextualize, arrange and record.”
“Like previous works”, he notes, “this new work mainly comes out of regular Sunday sessions when Tom and I get together to create riffs and samples.” During that time the pair noodled away at Ludvigson’s Rockynook Studios creating beds and themes using synthesizers, pads and software like Abelton Live. “We basically record everything we do, so we were just jamming away and we ended up with a huge body of work to cull through. We eventually halved that for the album.
Tom creates all this music from an array of digital toys and stuff and I then create loops and overlays from those.” From there the duo made the cuts, and ended up with a core selection of backing tracks all “in the key of ‘G’. That was the driving theme.”
If the names sound just a little familiar, then you’ll know Swedish born Tom Ludvigson from his days in the popular Auckland jazz combo Bluespeak, or the Inner City Jazz Workshop; the Jack Morris Big Band, Big Sideways; the fabulously underrated Low Profile/Elephunk or even Rick Bryant’s 80’s sensations the Jive Bombers. He also surfaces regularly at festival in Auckland and Wellington over the years and he created the music for the TV documentary on Robin Morrison called Blues For Robin. Ludvigson gets around. A multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger, band leader, performer, record producer, musical director for stage performances, session player and teacher. He does it all.
Of course, listeners to Radio New Zealand will know Trevor Reekie’s name and voice from the Access All Areas and Hidden Treasures shows or perhaps his time in 80’s electro-pop group Car Crash Set and his record labels, Pagan and Antenna. Check the back of your vinyl collection and you’ll see his name as producer on discs like the Mockers, Dance Macabre and Marginal Era.
The group’s title is a reference to A Trip to the Moon, a 1902 French silent film directed by Georges Méliès and was started up in the early 2000’s as a collaborative outlet for Reekie and Ludvigson, away from their day jobs. Over the years the group has morphed somewhat, settling on the current lineup, which has been a longtime constant now. That includes guitarist Nigel Gavin (Nairobi Trio, Gitbox Rebellion, Jews Brothers) and Jim Langabeer (a saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist who’s toured and recorded with Sammy Davis Jnr, The Bee Gees, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Alan Broadbent and Mavis Rivers) and Greg Johnson, who Reekie has produced in the past – all long time collaborators and friends.
Reekie’s background is mainly rock orientated but he also has a large appreciation of jazz and world music. “I wanted to collect up all the jazz that Tom is so well versed in and digitally merge it into our overall sound, like a sort of journey. Which is what it became. One of the most obvious examples of this is on the opening track Santa Monica Stroll, which, with Greg Johnson’s signature trumpet layered over the tune almost feels like something Miles Davis would have produced around the time of his Tutu album. “He’d be very flattered by that.”
“Actually Greg lives in LA now, so we sent him the tune and this what we got back. It does have that kind of nostalgic, warm vibe about it.” Another noteworthy piece is the closer Soudade. “It’s a Brazilian Portuguese word. It means a sort of deep emotional state of nostalgia, a sort of profound longing for someone or something that’s long gone. I think this song has that slow drift into time, or memory, like the inability to let go of a particular emotion.” Reekie knew instinctively that this album would begin and end with these tracks and in between there would be different types of moments. He knew exactly how it would sequence. This would not be just a random collection of songs.
It was intentional to bring in a number of ethnic instruments to build on the world traveller theme. For instance, Nigel Gavin adds glissentar (an eleven string, fretless, acoustic/electric guitar) and the delicate sounds of a fretless 7 string oud (a pear shaped lute).
Themes vary from Middle Eastern influences to stardust sprinkles, evoking some kind of travel, whether it is real or imagined. Some came from other projects or were influenced by other work. “Indira’s Pearl, for example,” says Reekie, “came from a rejected piece Tom had composed for a documentary some friends were making in India. We could have built it up like some sort of (Bollywood) dance theme but I chose to keep it very minimalist. There was a time we would have coloured it all in but not now. Simple is good.”
You arrange your own itinerary when Trip to the Moon hits the road on a limited 3-night adventure this month. Buy the CD at the door and get in for free.
Friday August 19th – Lot23 – 23 Minnie St, Eden Terrace
21 August – The Wine Cellar, Auckland
freshthinking 