The latest offering from Auckland songwriter Ben "Mali Mali" Tolich finds him in finest form. Often drawing comparisons to such local favourites as Pumice, Bill Direen, and Alastair Galbraith, Mali Mali ultimately stands alone in the musical landscape of Aotearoa. Minimal, mystical, and melodic, Spirit Tide is a very special record indeed.
Over the last decade, Ben Tolich, aka Mali Mali, has made an art form out of pursuing minimalism in song. In that time, the Auckland, New Zealand-based singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer has shared what will soon count as five full-length projects with the release of his new album Spirit Tide. “I've said this for the last few records, but each one has been an exercise in saying more with less, sonically,” he said.
Fittingly, as illustrated through sweeping ambient guitar figures, confessional lyricism and lush atmospheric ambience, the pastoral indie-folk songs he recorded for Spirit Tide transform the sparest of musical elements and motifs into an interlinked multiverse of songs, stories, feelings and memories. However, the paths and trails Tolich walked to get there weren’t always straightforward or clear-cut.
“Unlike my last three albums, there wasn't a clear message or theme from the outset,” Tolich noted before explaining how after writing the opening tracks Everything’s A River and The Sentence, visceral imagery around water and death began to guide him into the process. That summer, a camping trip through Northland/Te Tai Tokerau with his wife Alice allowed him to reconnect with the beauty and splendour of Ninety-mile beach, Te Paki stream and Cape Reinga. “I'm very drawn to physical locations in my imagination, and I like to dwell on those in songwriting,” he said. “The rawness of Earth's elements is appealing.”
In the past, Tolich had felt a warm connection with the far north. This time, he was captivated by the region’s overarching spiritual feeling and the traditional Māori stories about souls travelling up the coast of Cape Reinga towards the afterlife. In a sense, this relationship between landscape and feeling helped set the scene for the songs that followed.
While lyrically working his way around water, death, nature and love, Tolich carefully crafted ten songs before eventually recording and mixing them in his home studio, affectionately nicknamed “The Coop”. “It's a small spare room, and we have chickens scratching around outside,” he laughed. Although it was a mostly solitary and, as he put it, “painstaking” process, Tolich was assisted at points by his wife on harp and backing vocals and drummer Alex Freer (recorded at Jonathan Pearce from The Beths’ studio space).
In the past, Tolich’s songwriting has been placed within the same tradition as New Zealand post-punk and oddball pop artists such as Peter Jefferies, Alaistair Gailbraith, and Bill Direen. At times, he’s also been located alongside the free-flowing alternative country of Wilco and the ambient post-rock of Talk Talk while winning accolades from Radio New Zealand’s Nick Bollinger and the freelance music critics Simon Sweetman and Graham Reid. But if you ask him directly, his heroes are the American greats who immortalise the places they sing about in their country through song.
With Spirit Tide, Tolich applies this approach to the natural landscape of New Zealand, telling local stories in a local voice. A decade in, he feels fortunate to have toured Australia and New Zealand, supported international acts like Perfume Genius, Jordan Ireland, Soda Eaves and Boy & Bear, and even performed further abroad in the city many of his heroes have called home, Los Angeles.
At the same time, however, when Tolich thinks back over the last ten summers, what he’s really derived meaning from is the feeling of chasing down fleeting moments of emotion before archiving them through song. In his words, “I think my younger self would be happy to know I've followed my gut, chased beauty and made something that highlights the little forgotten areas of life.”
Tracklisting:
1. Everything’s a River
2. The Sentence
3. Atua Peruperu
4. What Are the Rocks For?
5. Piano Ringing On
6. Duvet Views (In the Bed Blues)
7. Butterfly
8. Summer Evenings
9. Highway 32
10. Paradise Ducks on a Muddy Soccer Field
