Bi-Lingual Punk Trio Half/Time Tour Wales

Hamilton punk band Half/Time recently performed alongside Welsh artists who sing in Cymraeg as part of a musical cultural exchange, which aimed to spark important conversations about what it means to create pop songs in “minority” languages, Steven Morrison reports for The Guardian.

The exchange was organised by the universities of Waikato and Cardiff.

The project called Pūtahitanga, is a word in Māori that refers to the bringing together of a community on a similar issue, with an Instagram account featuring a striking image that melds a Welsh mountain with a Māori face.

Wairehu Grant (Ngāti Maniapoto), the band’s guitarist, who describes himself as a “dusty weirdo lurking in the depths of Kirikiriroa”, said the three-piece grew out of the “cosmic hellscape” of 2020 when the pandemic gripped the world, one of its intentions being to “address the lingering impacts of colonisation in modern Aotearoa ”.

Half/Time is also Ciara Bernstein on drums and Cee (Te Rarawa, Ngāti Kahu ki Whangaroa) on bass.

Original article by Steven Morris, The Guardian, May 1, 2023.