Papatu Road

'Papatu' is the second album from Ben Kemp, a Tokyo-based New Zealand-born musician and writer. Ben draws inspiration from his Maori roots and his fascination with Japanese culture, and seeks to "create fusions between Polynesian and Japanese artistic influences.

In the space between describes a place neither here nor there, where traditional forms of art hesitantly tread. This is the place Ben Kemp has been most his life. NZ born with mixed Maori and German bloodlines, singer-songwriter Kemp spent his childhood in Gisborne, traversing the worlds of Pakeha and Maori, yet never feeling fully accepted by neither. As a man, he has found his identity in the most unlikely of places – in the relentless hustle of Japan.

Ben Kemp, together with his band Uminari, strives to blend the soulful acoustic imagery of his Kiwi upbringing with the rich tapestry of Japanese culture, something they've achieved with style and class on their second album 'Papatu Road'.

Kemp has coined the phrase Polyn-Asian to describe his sound and present his unique Pacific-Rim sound. It is beyond the usual boundaries and outside what is usually considered World Music. Kemp and Uminari perform "between the lines”, intricately texturing sounds from the Pacific and the Orient.

So who is Ben Kemp? His relative anonymity in NZ obscures a prolific artist – Kemp has 2 albums behind him [his debut 'A River's Mouth' was released in '05], while he's also played in excess of 200 live shows in Japan and is in fact a published poet in NZ, who was also invited to read at Montana National Poetry Day as one of two emerging poets.

Uminari was created back in '03, when Kemp was busking on the streets of Tokyo. Since then, the group has grown to a quartet of accomplished, multi-talented musicians armed with the capacity to fully explore their creative explorations.

Bassist Suzuki is the band's producer and a graduate of Boston's Berkley College of Music; flautist Mitsuru has absorbed traditional Maori flute styles of Koauau and Ngaru, and played on legendary jazz label Blue Note's 60th Anniversary album; while percussionist Taro plays styles from around the Pacific Rim, from the traditional styles of his homeland, Pacific Island techniques and the obscure Peruvian instrument, the Cajon.

Kemp and his band are continually unearthing new and exciting ground as they evolve and mature. His themes draw from Aotearoa, his sense of ancestral ties, generational wisdom and the bountiful nature; and peppers them with Japanese colour, symbols and ideas. This clash of Maori and Japanese cultures now shape his music and performances.

Ben Kemp and Uminari seek to challenge the accepted definitions of their cultural art, but of their craft as a whole. In the realm of Western music, based on structured notes, Kemp searches for that elusive space in between.