Anna Coddington "Cat & Bird" 2011

...E rere wairua, e rere / Fly O free spirit, fly Ki ngā ao o te rangi / to the clouds in the heavens
So begins Anna Coddington's version of 'Purea Nei' (a waiata by Henare Mahanga, modified and popularised by Hirini Melbourne). Coddington appreciates the song’s spiritual dimension. She has beautiful pronunciation, I say. “Kia Ora!” she smiles radiantly, before making a passionate case for all children to learn te reo Māori. “I studied at the AUT night classes, which was really cool. As a linguist, I think language is really precious and it’s a bee in my bonnet that Māori is such an effort to learn in the one country in the world where it’s spoken.”..
...Coddington and Mina Ripia walked away joint winners for the Best Māori Female Solo Artist award at the 2011 National Waiata Māori Music Awards. “This is the most laughs I’ve ever had at an awards ceremony," said Anna, collecting her prize, "and it is the first award I have received since I have been releasing my own albums.”
2013’s ‘Bird In Hand’, produced by SJD, is about letting go. “It sums up that feeling of watching someone fly away from you, and not really wanting that to happen. The lyrics say: ‘To watch you fly it hurts me, why can’t I be the one with my face to the sun?’ It’s partly about letting someone go without really wanting to but knowing it’s the best thing, and it’s partly about watching somebody else succeed and being happy for them but also feeling a bit left behind.”
Electric Wire Hustle’s Mara TK has dubbed her “Pania of the Streets”. She is into rap, and Home Brew’s Haz produced a hip-hop version of ‘Bird In Hand’.
There’s a spacious, unfastened feel to Coddington’s music. “I like that spacious vibe because it’s a good head space to be in, cluttered anything is not my buzz. I live by the mantra ‘tidy house, tidy mind’. The first thing I do every morning is tidy up and I can’t start working until everything is tidy.”
She is now focusing on singles, such as ‘Make You Mine’ and ‘The Runner’. In June 2014 she told me she was on the verge of having something musically new and exciting. “I’m finding a way to fit making music in around the schedule of an infant.”
One achievement that might surprise about Coddington is that for a time, she was the most played artist on Australian TV soap Home and Away. The music industry’s not easy to live off, but it’s still good. “Totally. And I think if you’re willing to work hard you can make it work. There are lots of ways to make little bits of money. You’ve just got to try and enjoy it, otherwise, go and not enjoy something else and get paid. That’s what it comes down to.”
An enjoyable diversion came early in 2016 when Coddington - while pregnant with her second child – performed at the Auckland Arts Festival in Dust to Dusky, a tribute to Dusty Springfield which also featured Bella Kalolo, Tami Neilson and Colleen Davis. In September 2016, she gave one of the standout performances at the APRA Silver Scroll, interpreting Rob Ruha’s Maioha award-winning waiata, ‘Kariri’.
Shortly afterwards, Coddington released Luck/Time, through Loop: an album of 12 original songs. Graham Reid wrote, “When she couches these songs in all that post-R&B electro-pop can offer, [they] are given grooves that grip, the melodic hooks come to the fore with ear-catching backing vocals and the strings add emotional weight and breadth.”
In 2017 Coddington formed the duo Clicks with her partner, Dick Johnson. - Alexander Bisley and AudioCulture

trax:
01 Free 02 Bolt 03 Get Involved 04 Heavy Boots, Blue Skies 05 Underneath The Stars 06 Lights Ahead 07 Cat & Bird 08 Little Islands 09 Your Past For Years 10 Open 11 Black Light
…served by Gaius…