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For the past five years or so, Auckland musician Payton Taplin has been releasing music under the name Fable, but recently switched to Greatsouth.
The name change indicates a shift in sound, from progressive RnB to guitar-based indie rock.
Taplin says that sonically, “this is something new, and different. Something unexplored.”
The new moniker is a tribute to his neighbourhood. Taplin says “Great South Road is the artery, or the main route, for people heading to South Auckland.
“The whakapapa or history of the road is quite significant. It was built for conquest, essentially, to carry military supplies to the Waikato during the wars that kicked off in 1863.
“I find it bittersweet that it was built for that purpose: sweet in the sense that it’s now a melting pot of diverse cultures. A lot of Māori, a lot of Pacific, and other ethnicities, have built their livelihoods there, or had generations of experiences along that road.
“It’s got a lot of mana in it.”
Since his debut single ‘Weekend’, Taplin’s songs have championed a working class perspective, which continues on the new self-titled album.
Opening track ‘Please!’ is about “trying to get through the week, or when you’ve had a rough week, and you’re just trying to wind down. That was the state I was in when I was making it, anyway.”
The theme returns on ‘Another day in Tāmaki’. Taplin says “A lot of the tracks are fueled by the social and political climate at the moment, particularly the impacts on Māori communities.
“For me, that song is harnessing the dark cloud, or bad weather. I tried to use the motif of how unpredictable Tāmaki weather is. We sampled an actual storm and included it in the track.
“It’s about the despair of where we are at the moment, but also, with the weather being so unpredictable, it will soon subside.
“A lot of my work, the foundation is working class families, and working class culture here in Aotearoa.
“You can always find elements of urban Māori. A lot of it is trying to be authentically myself.”
The title of single ‘Nada in my Wallet’ makes its subject clear: “Most people can relate to the cost of living crisis, and not feeling like you can do the things you want to do, or be creative.”
And in the liner notes to Greatsouth, Taplin says ‘Speedstar’ concerns “the attempted erosion of Māoritanga.”
“There’s this concept of Māori privilege which dates back to the signing of Te Tiriti in the 1840s, that Māori have some sort of extra privilege over initial settlers.
“That’s how a lot of policies around separating land entitlement from individual holders started.
“There’s so much to offer within Māoritanga, for Māori, but also tangata Tiriti and non-Māori.
“This concept that Māori are going to take everything away, and there’s going to be nothing left for anyone else… If you understand tikanga Māori and te ao Māori, that’s not within the constructs of the culture.
“It’s all about manaaki and kaitiakitanga, and protecting our resources. There’s nothing in there that says the opposite.”
The tracks on Greatsouth are louder, and more impassioned, than his work as Fable. Are they protest songs?
“To be Māori is a protest. Māori have always had to fight for their rights. If you think of Whina Cooper, and all of the great rangatira that have started all these amazing initiatives for Māori - the land marches, the foreshore seabed - all that stuff is off the back of Māori protests.
“Protesting to be themselves in their own whenua.
“There’s always an element of that within all Aotearoa Māori art, and it’s definitely raised and amplified in this project.”
In 2023 Taplin successfully applied to attend the Martin Garrix JBL Academy in Amsterdam, which aims to nurture emerging talent.
His classmates there introduced him to acts like The Sundays, The Cure, The Smiths, and Cocteau Twins.
He was drawn to the “shoegaze-y sounds, very washed out reverb-y sounds, guitar so distorted it doesn’t sound like a guitar anymore.
“The singing’s echoed, and you can barely make out what they’re saying, but the tone is so sweet and so nice.
“From that trip on, I was like ‘I want to make this, but with a South Auckland vibe’”.