He played at Homegrown last week and has two more gigs – at San Fran in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington on April 13 and Galatos in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland on April 19 – and after that, Muroki is off.
To Berlin, no less.
“It’s going to be fun, man. Like, yeah it’s going to be awesome making the move over there next month. It’s just going to be a little bit sad playing these last shows, but I think it’s going to be fun as well,” the multi-talented musician says.
Muroki’s based in Tāmaki now, where he’s just released his third EP, Timezones.
The seven-track mini-album was a long time in the making but he’s “pretty stoked to have it out there, super happy”.
“It’s a little bit more experimental, particularly with my vocals, the vocal production, I mean the way I’ve been using my voice. I’m just trying to push it in a different direction. There’s still the mellow stuff in there as well and I feel like overall it’s a bit of a slower tempo, but it’s a bit more in the groove. It’s like a development in a way from what I’ve been doing in the past, especially in the kind of funk realm.”
The past for Muroki started right here in Whaingaroa Raglan with bands Cloak Bay and Masaya before heading out on his own and achieving platinum success with the single Wavy in 2021 and the te reo version Rehurehu on Waiata Anthems the same year.
He says it’s too hard to pick a single out of the seven tracks on Timezones.
“They could all be singles, you know. Everybody’s got their favourite and I feel like there’s something on there for everybody. They all work in different ways. It depends on the audience listening to it as well, but I do find that part a bit tricky.”
With only a couple of gigs left before he heads off for the foreseeable future, his last gig at the Yottie may well have been his last in Raglan for some time; not that many venues could accommodate his fans.
“Yeah, last time I played at the Yottie it was just chocker. Next time we play we might need a bigger venue.”
But that’s not something he’ll have to worry about in Berlin, where he doesn’t have a whole lot of plans in place.
“There’s nothing set in stone at this point. I’m just going to get myself over there and, you know, try it out for a couple of years.”
However, with three EPs under his belt, surely it’s time for an album?
“I reckon that might be my next venture. I think it’s time to dabble into the album world. It’s a lot of work. This EP was pretty cruisy. I went over to America and took three songs and then I wrote four tracks from scratch over there but the whole thing was finished off in 11 days. We kind of went over to America, spent two weeks, hours in the studio every day and then maybe a couple of sessions afterwards but it wasn’t like a crazy two weeks. But you know, that’s only seven songs, I don’t know what it’d be like with 13 or so.”
All that’s for the future anyway, as his big adventure awaits. And he expects to catch up with plenty of Raglan friends and whānau in Berlin.
“There’ll be a lot of Kiwis over there because people from here go to Europe so often, so I feel like I’m going to be the base for people coming to stay. I hope they all start coming over, that’d be cool, I don’t have any mates over there.”
