TuaTara, the debut album by Manatapu, is set to bring the right vibe to the alternative scene this season. Ramona Depares interviews the band ahead of the album launch party.

It’s been a while since we heard from you guys – what has Manatapu been up to recently?

We were busy writing the music; getting support from different quarters such as Malta Arts Council, ZAAR’s crowdfunding and sponsors; and also getting our launch for this new album, TuaTara, endorsed by Valletta 2018.

Then, we finally got working on producing the songs that we chose for this album with Lighthouse Productions, and finally headed to SpineSplitter Studio by the end of February. We kept ourselves very busy during these last two years and we are now working on the last touches and logistics to finally have our TuaTara album launch.

You have also had a change in line-up – has this affected the sound/dynamics at all?

Yes, towards the beginning of 2017 ManaTapu were searching for a new bassist to replace Francesco Darmanin and, after a lot of soul-searching, around March last year Aaron joined us as our new bass player. With him he got all these new bass lines and different time signatures that he so much likes to show off with.

Then, at the end of 2017, we were once again searching for another drummer to replace Andrew McGrath, and we were so lucky to have bumped into Ryan Abela as we already knew him from some other events he used to organise.

When we asked if he wanted to play drums with us, being already a big fan of ours he was immediately psyched to join us as our new drummer. We’re so happy to have him on board as he’s learnt all of the songs in pretty much three to four weeks before we had booked to head to the studio.  

You are known for a pretty multilingual approach to music, which makes things even more fun – is this still the case? What are the challenges to this?

Yes, this is still very much the case. This album contains songs in Maltese, English, Spanish, French and also German. And most of these languages are glued and combined together to create authentic, melodic songs.

One of the challenges of having multiple members in the band coming from different countries is the language barrier. But we did not want that wall to restrict our ways of communicating with each other, so why not extend it to our music?

You will be launching the new album, TuaTara soon. So – what is TuaTara?

TuaTara is a lizard commonly found in New Zealand. It is a special lizard; the name comes from the Maori language and means ‘peaks on the back’.

When did work on the album start?

Work has been coming for quite a while. Some of the songs were written more than five years ago, and most of our fans will recognise most of the songs on the album. But the biggest part and the busiest time for us since this project started happened towards the beginning of 2018, when we started working on producing our written songs to actual guide tracks, ready to be used for when we headed to the studio.

Is there a particular theme/vibe?

Yes, the whole album is a journey. We wanted to take our listeners through the tough times. There is a bit of a darker vibe in our music, but we finally also arrive to more upbeat and happy songs, the kind that most of our fans are accustomed to.

The album depicts a story where ego and greed rule over everything else, showing how life sometimes can be like a big, scary and bumpy ride. But, when one comes to realise that one’s self is what is controlling the narrative, only then can you feel free, be ready to make friends – and maybe also lose some. Only then can you ever feel peace with yourself and be ready to share and party as part of a multiculturist community. 

What were the biggest challenges bringing it all together?

Having to replace two core instruments were one of the challenges. At the same time we were also busy setting up Lighthouse Production to ensure the environment that we needed to record and produce the guide tracks was in place.

Time was never a good friend of ours, and we were also worried that Tete Camacho Criminal would not be able to make it here in time to record.

It was a bumpy ride, but we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

Manatapu has always been tied up to the summer – whyis this?

Actually, most of the writing and inspiration usually happens in the winter when we are less busy with summer gigs – even though most of our songs usually give the vibe of a very summery feeling.

It could be due to the fact that we are a band that happened on a tiny island in the middle of the Mediterranean. We are surrounded by the sea and we met most of our members during summer jams, so we are definitely in love with summer.

What’s next on the map?

Even though we cannot officially say that we have already finished this project until we have our TuaTara Album Launch Party, we are already planning ahead and have quite a good road map for our next projects.

First of all, we want to release a top, state-of-the-art music video that we hope will break new ground.

We also plan to start working on the production for our new EP – but more about that later this summer!

TuaTara Album Launch Party takes place on May 25 at Ta’ Fra Ben, Qawra.