Retrospective: The @Peace Interview (2011)

Revisiting my 2011 interview with @Peace for Rip It Up Magazine (NZ) Photographer Credit: Hone St John Selected Works is a weekly (usually) newsletter by the Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa (Wellington, New Zealand) based freelance music journalist, broadcaster, copywriter and sometimes DJ Martyn Pepperell, aka Yours Truly. Most weeks, Selected Works consists of a recap of what I’ve been doing lately and some of what I’ve been listening to and reading, paired with film photographs I’ve taken + some bonuses. All of that said, sometimes it takes completely different forms. Between 2011 and 2014, @Peace, a studio/live collaboration between Tom Scott, Lui Tuiasau, Brandon Haru, Dandruff Dicky and Christoph El Truento, released three significant projects, their self-titled album (2011), the Girl Songs EP (2013), and @Peace And The Plutonian Noise Symphony (2014). In the process, they slowly abstracted their jazzy-tinged reality raps, and pliant future beats into a form of celestial psychedelic soul music in the same traditions as The Sun Ra Arkestra and Outkast. Before the release of their self-titled album, I profiled the group for the now-shuttered New Zealand music magazine Rip It Up. Thirteen years later, I’m happy to re-present this story via my newsletter. Each One Teach...