The multi-talented Deborah Wai Kapohe has sung in operas and musicals, contemporary Maori music and self-accompanied guitar and voice recitals throughout New Zealand and Australia, as well as Britain, China and South Africa. In this, her second album, she proves her many-faceted abilities, playing guitar and singing her own lyrics with the power and beauty of an opera singer, with the occasional inflection of Maori influence and using her considerable vocal range to project the emotion of her lyrics.

She sounds similar to Kate Bush, and the phrasing on some of the songs is also reminiscent of Kate's Never Forever album, but this soprano voice has a surprising depth and a purity all its own. Trying to compare her to Suzanne Vega or Tanita Tikaram or any other renowned singer-songwriter becomes a futile exercise; each has the gift of originality in expression, and Kapohe, while perhaps not a name well-known in the northern hemisphere, surely soon will be.

Her lyrics are poetry -- love and life, routine and rhythm -- and she has a wonderful way with words that makes really listening to the lyrics, or even reading them on the CD cover, a true pleasure. The more one listens, the more one wants to hear and the deeper the meaning of the songs permeates. This is a beautiful selection of songs, all the more astonishing given her operatic background; the gifts of singing, playing and composing blend into one.

- Rambles
written by Jenny Ivor
published 3 July 2004

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