[PRE ORDER] The Hongi Slicker - Falling Off b/w Do It Better (For Us) (7” Vinyl)

Mānuka Recordings is pleased to present our first offering in the Mānuka Special series; ‘Falling Off’ / ‘Do It Better (For Us),’ a collaboration with The Hongi Slicker aka Troy Kingi (Te Arawa, Ngāpuhi, Te Whānau-ā-Apanui), an award-winning, multi-genre Māori musician and actor from Rotorua and Te Kaha. Best known for his ongoing “ten albums, ten genres, ten years” recording project and his memorable acting roles in the local films Hunt For The Wilderpeople and Mt Zion, Kingi possesses a unique cultural currency that allows him to move freely between the mainstream and underground of Aotearoa New Zealand.

When our co-founder and in-house producer, Kenny Sterling, met Kingi for the first time backstage at an Avantdale Bowling Club show at Auckland Town Hall in 2022, he was already a fan of ‘Grandma’s Rocket Poem’ off his psychedelic funk album Shake That Skinny Ass All the Way to Zygertron (2017). Feeling a natural affinity with the song’s star-dusted ‘70s sensibilities, he approached Kingi about exploring that zone together further via some of his throwback productions.

For ‘Falling Off’ Sterling pulls in Julien Dyne (drums), JY Lee (horns), Cory Champion (vibraphone), Tiare Kelly (sitar) and Romi Wrights (backing vocals) to summon up a cruisy cinematic soul instrumental. On ‘Do It Better (For Us),’ he brings back Champion on the vibraphone and tags in Samara Alofa on backing vocals while boiling up some slow-simmering jazz-funk arrangements dripping in sunkissed guitar figures. Together, they provide a fitting platform for Kingi’s richly expressive vocal timbre and inward-looking songwriting.

‘Falling Off’ and ‘Do It Better (For Us)’ were mixed by Sterling and mastered by Josh Llewellyn @ Downbeat Mastering. The result is a retro two-tracker that evokes the feeling of obscure b-sides or forgotten album cuts left to age in the back of a dusty record store before being rediscovered decades later by a diligent mp3 blogger during the Mediafire era. These ones are for the heads.

Mānuka Special is a new Mānuka Recordings series where we present leftfield collaborations with established artists from Aotearoa and beyond.