You exit the elevator “ding!”, top floor! The hallway walls and ceiling lined with bio-luminescent reef coral, submarine door handles spin for 5 seconds and open. Centre stage a lone figure head down, white brimmed hat covering face, one foot ledged upon the stool, the other lightly touching the ground.
Pasifika Jazz sets the mood thunderously, pounding drums and strong and impassioned vocals inflame the room in warm light as the audience take their seats and ignite their cigarettes among the reef lounges. Your eyes peer through the window outside and notice a school of parrot fish circling the jazz bar. ‘Garmonnn’ erupts and snaps your attention back to West Sydney artist Tahkoe, submerging back into his reality. He leaps from his seat delivering lyrical heat over soul jazz timbres and grand piano melodies.
The blue curtain behind him exposes the band as the earworm, ‘brown girls’ continues a fast but slick tempo. Your eyes wander again hypnotised by a motion blur that morphs Tahkoe’s shape. Then ‘Dummyyy’ twinkles and wavers in illustrious guitar licks, as he slides into an almost jellyfish like mirage. The white hat now forming the bell of the jellyfish and his body an entangled humanoid unity of tentacles, an illusion that could only be conjured by the tree wizard himself.
The nostalgic ‘Wade wit tha sleeve ft. Station Hayds’ instrumentally pumps a romantic élan vital into the room that lifts everyone to their fins around you. The room dancing and swimming now synchronised to the sway of ‘Pity, pity’’s trumpet solo. ‘Long day!’ swings you into the currents of Tahkoe’s flow over an addictive sample that circles your ears and quickly coats you in colourful scales as the track closes.
As we reach the last quarter of the album, hydrothermic vents engulf the room in smoke shrouding the nautical illusion whilst sultry saxophone of ‘if it was up to me’ laden your gills. The smoke settles, Tahkoe appears once again settled upon the stool back in human form flexing his lyrical muscles.
The droned out instrumentals of ‘FiNE LUViN’ maintains your focus on his pen game as if the lights in the room finally lift to its natural bio-luminescent state. Tahkoe’s Pasifika Jazz invites you to live in the fleeting tide of love and wonder, ensuring you leave lighter and more charged than how you began.
Words by badbitchbenny