Anika Moa "Queen at the Table" 2015

...Off the back of the album came Songs for Bubbas 2 – a no-brainer considering the massive success of its predecessor. “I can pay my rent now,” Moa joked to The Spinoff’s Alex Casey. “Songs for Bubbas 1 and 2 have absolutely defined me as a person and as a mother and as a woman. I’ve helped so many women in this country get their kids to sleep and I don’t know how I did it. All I did was I did everything from my heart.”...
...Moa’s unexpected turn into children’s entertainment has given her career a certain duality. “I’m really living two lives between doing my adult gigs and being naughty, and then doing kids’ gigs and not swearing and being Aunty Anika.”
That double life of children’s entertainer/singer-songwriter quickly turned into a triple life, with Moa adding television presenter to the mix. It all started in 2015, when Face-to-Face with Anika Moa launched on NZ Herald online – a laid-back chat show with local musicians that showcased her hilarious and, at times, outrageous interview style. Next came All Talk with Anika Moa on Māori TV, followed by a stint covering Jeremy Wells alongside Hilary Barry for Seven Sharp – a high honour for a novice in the profession.
If it was a test, she passed, as she landed her own TVNZ chat show in 2018. In Anika Moa Unleashed she interviews some of New Zealand’s most well-known and/or controversial public figures with her signature cheek and candour. From calling Paula Bennett “Paula Benefit”, to doing a Helen Clark impersonation to Helen Clark, to getting Sam Neill to swear on camera, it was exactly what the audience wanted from her. The reception from critics was also glowing, with Moa picking up best entertainment presenter at the 2018 New Zealand Television Awards
The success of her new ventures did not mean the end of Moa’s “adult music” (as she calls it), but time to write was hard to find, especially considering her busy family life. In 2017 Moa married reporter/producer Natasha Utting, whose son joined their blended family of now three boys. Nonetheless, Moa never stopped chipping away at new lyrics; it’s a necessity for her.
“I see the songs like a cheap version of therapy,” she told RNZ’s Kim Hill in 2018. “The only way I can work through a problem is by writing about it. Even if it’s a good thing, even if it’s happy.”
After an 18-month period of intermittent songwriting, Moa flew to America for the recording of her eighth studio – and first self-titled – album.
Anika Moa was recorded in eight days at New Orleans’ beautiful Esplanade Studios, a renovated church that had been abandoned in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina put it three metres under water. Although the musicians were American, producer Brady Blade had spent a lot of time in New Zealand, and produced Brooke Fraser’s debut album What to do With Daylight in 2003, and worked with Annah Mac and Annabel Fay.
“It’s an American sounding album … that’s the sound I wanted,” Moa told Hill upon its release. “I’ve done heaps of New Zealand-sounding albums. I wanted to try something new … there’s an electronica album, there’s a rock album, there’s a pop album … people should know that about me by now, that I do not sit with any genre or style, I just go with what I need to go with.”
The sound she created with Blade was polished, heartfelt pop, with surprisingly sad lyrics – only surprising due to the high-octane comedy she had been making for her chat show the very same year. As she told Hill, “Everyone must develop their feelings and everyone must go through their vulnerable side. And even though I do funny things and try to be comedic all the time, I am a human being, and human beings feel, and I feel deeply – not deeply enough, but I try my best.”
Critical reception was positive, particularly to the vulnerability Moa presented in her lyrics. The Spinoff’s Henry Oliver aptly noted, “The album combines ‘that Americana sound’ with a 90s rock edge and, at times, classic singer-songwriter guitar pop. It sounds full and direct. There’s nowhere for the songs to hide, nowhere for Anika Moa to hide. The best songs are the saddest songs, the ones where the guitars sound like they’re crying to the story they’re accompanying, the ones that make you feel like you’re in the same room as the band, hearing something maybe you shouldn’t.”...to be continued... - Amanda Mills and AudioCulture

trax:
01 Running 02 These Lonely Tears I Cry For You 03 Lover 04 Our Love Will Die 05 Fly 06 Closer 07 The Only Thing That Matters 08 If You See Her 09 Jealous 10 Queen At the Table 11 Running Through The Fire (Bulletproof Remix)
…served by Gaius…