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Mara TK

@thealienmaratk

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Bad Meditation vinyl & Free shit👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

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House Of Angels Vol 1 compilation out October 30 featuring various artists from around the world.

Soulful Mara TK from New Zealand.

Introducing the mysterious “French Ghost” we don’t know where he’s from but can tell you he is not French, he is not a ghost but he has some dope beats.

Representing from Berlin is Maytra.

Secret Angels alumni, Cave Circles from New Zealand.

Returning with her own music, Lacey IQ from Los Angeles.

Poet, MC, DJ/Producer The IZM. from New Jersey.

Coming out of Detroit we have Ryan Sadorus.

Introducing the very talented Boyett from Spain.

The smooth sounds of Los Angeles native ORFEO.

Introduction by the stylish Kari Ko, based in Paris.

With a Bandcamp only bonus track from Isaac Aesili, another one from New Zealand. You may have noticed by now we have mad love for artists in New Zealand here at Secret Angels.

Compilation curated by creative nomad and label founder, Seven Davis Jr.

Out on all digital platforms October 30 but you can pre-order on Bandcamp now and get 3 tracks up front! taken in Around The World by @thealienmaratk

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11 days ago

welcome @thealienmaratk

Mara TK (Kai Tahu, Ngāti Maniapoto) is multi-disciplinary artist working at the juncture of kaupapa Māori (Māori led community projects), popular music and visual art installations “I’m just in it for the stories really...”

He holds a certain weight of reverence amongst music fans across the globe for his music production work with the likes of Kimbra, Just Blaze and Mos Def.

But it is his own country’s indigenous projects that keep him going - “Māori have a beautiful poetic language and a rich history of love stories, war stories and oral histories that connect us to all living things, so at some point a cousin is going to tap you on the shoulder to come and work with them - it might be that they need some beats, a soundscape - or they might only need me to peel potatoes and I really live for those phone calls...”

Mara TK was also the lead singer for Electric Wire Hustle, an acclaimed left-field soul, R&B, and electronic music trio formed in Wellington, New Zealand, in 2007. Known for blending thick hip-hop drums, psychedelic sound design, and soaring soulful vocals, the group earned international cult status and major critical praise.

Mara TK makes his label debut on House Of Angels Vol 1 (10.30.26) taken in New Zealand by @thealienmaratk

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20 days ago

Repress of ‘Bad Meditation’, the debut solo record from Mara TK { @thealienmaratk }
Available now for pre-order.
Very limited numbers.
Shipping Whiringa-ā-nuku. by @thealienmaratk

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a month ago

ORO ATA 4 TAM - a sunset session (early start, early finish) fundraiser concert for my campaign featuring the indigenous artist collective hailing from Pōneke - ORO ATA - MĀ, ROMI WRIGHTS, LILA JNR, IRIS LITTLE, MARA TK 🔥

$20 early bird tickets on sale now in my bio 🩷 this ones perfect for all the artists (and their fans) out there who are too consumed in their art and feelings to volunteer but don’t want to keep getting treated like shit by the current govt xx nau mai

Forever grateful to be able to call for back ups from our best talent to tautoko this campaign. For our city, for Te Tiriti, for our people, for our taiao, and the list goes on ❤️‍🔥

Another big thank you to @_trash.bandit_ and @melodyrules for pulling together another gig 🔥🔥🔥🙏🏽 taken in Meow by @thealienmaratk

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2 months ago

Only two more days to see Hawaiki Apōpz - a beautiful deep dive into a future built for all our tamariki with love and compassion!

Come into the gallery tomorrow or Saturday 1st of August - the last day to see this exhibition!

Curated by Te Ikahoungata and featuring Keita Newbery, Ngaumutane Jones and Mara TK, Hawaiki Apōpz is a Māori millennial solution to the looming pakeha apocalypse. Inspired by our tamariki, early 2000’s apocalypse horror films and guided by the matakite and Afrofuturist writer Octavia Butler.

Hawaiki Apōpz asks our community to dream of a future filled with abundance, rest and recovery. It’s karanga invites us to be inquisitive about change, to live beyond colonisation. To imagine a reality where Māori whakaaro, kaitiakitanga and moemoea are at the forefront of the
new world.

Ngaumutane, Keita, Mara and Te Ikahoungata spent long hours in wānanga, dreaming of futures for tamariki across ngā motu. Ngaumu’s Wharerau Newanewa is a soft place to land, a slowly formed home for contemplation, karakia, rest and dreaminess. Through Keita’s photographs we are taken to her home at Te Umuroa marae, which is wrapped gently beneath the misty mink blanket of Ruataahuna, Te Manawa o Te Ika o Te Urewera. Mara’s sonic haerenga calls in the extraterrestrial, the ancestors and the moko’s to come together for the future.

Matariki is a time of reflection, renewal, and collective orientation towards what is to come. This wānanga feels especially attuned to the moment where the cosmos aligns.

@te_ikahoungata @thealienmaratk @ngamoolie

With grateful thanks to our supporters and funders who keep the lights on and artists paid!

@creativenz @dunedincitycouncil @otagocommunitytrust by @thealienmaratk

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3 months ago

Last few days to see our current exhibition… that’s also the last chance to listen to sound composition ‘Ngā Mata ō Hina’, made by Mara TK. @thealienmaratk.

This work is part of a group show ‘Tātai Tuarangi: Star Seeds, Sound Waves and Ceremonies’, curated by Megan-Tamati Quennell @maoriartcurator & Assistant Curator Taniora Tamati-Rakete.

Mara TK (Mara Te Kāhika) is a Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Kahungunu and Kai Tahu musician. His sound work Ngā Mata ō Hina (2025) explores Māori relationships with the moon through sound.

It was informed using multiple sources, including the scholarship of Dr Rangi Matamua of Ngāi Tūhoe descent, whose work has reshaped contemporary understandings of Māori astronomy, and the maramataka, Māori lunar calendar, attributed to Mita Te Tai that is featured in this show.

TK uses a kaupapa Māori or Māori centred focus for his music compositions and sound works. He incorporates a range of musical genres including neo soul, contemporary jazz and hip hop and draws on Māori forms of expression, values and practices including language and tikanga (right cultural practice) to explore contemporary experiences.

Along with his voice and instruments including the guitar, TK also includes customary instruments such as uku tangi, traditional clay flutes, or poiāwhiowhio, a gourd instrument, played by swinging it above the head, as can be heard in this sound track.

Ngā Mata ō Hina (2025) was commissioned for and first shown in ‘to carry’, The Sharjah Biennial 16, co-curated by Megan Tamati Quennell and held in Sharjah, the UAE February to June 2025. @sharjahart

A vinyl of this sound work was pressed and made. It features the artwork of leading First Nations Australian artist Daniel Boyd @d_a_n_b_o_y_d who is of Kudjala, Ghungala, Wangerriburra, Wakka Wakka, Gubbi Gubbi, Kuku Yalanji, Bundjalung, Yuggera and ni-Vanuatu descent.

Mara TK (1984–), Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Kahungunu, Kai Tahu, Aotearoa/New Zealand Ngā Mata ō Hina 2025 sound composition - 12 minutes, 40 seconds, looped on loan from the artist taken in Wairau Māori Art Gallery by @thealienmaratk

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3 months ago

❣️KĀ MIHI NUNUI ŌTEPOTI❣️

Last weekend we opened Hawaiki Apōpz and Ghost Hiikoi 2! It was so beautiful and full of mokopuna and aroha!

Thank you all so much for coming out on a rainy winter's day to celebrate 4 incredible artists, ilish thomas, Keita Newbery, Mara TK and Ngaumutane Jones and Hawaiki Apōpz wonderful curator Te Ikahoungata!

The whole gallery was full of aroha - a wonderful way to open the two exhibitions!

Big aroha me mihi maioha kia Alex Wong (@tahuone.uku) for these pikitia ātaahua!!!!!

More photos to come, but for now - massive love to everyone near and far! by @thealienmaratk

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4 months ago

The wānanga of Hawaiki Apōpz became much bigger than just our installation. It became about our relationship to each other. We spent a week together at Brighton Beach in Ōtepoti with our kids, learning to exist together as a nū hapū. This time together was invaluable.

Our giant thank yous and aroha to the Blue Oyster Art Project Space for the commission of this work. Working with Piupiu-Maya Turei and Jordan Davey-Emms was a taonga. You guys made our time i Te Wai Pounamu warm, safe and loved.

Thank you to our whānau who pulled up to the whakawatea and our beautiful opening, you came from far and wide. It was not an easy opening. It was hard, sad and confronting. But it was also tender and a soft place to land.

We want to thank our whānau ki Te Ika o Maui who couldn’t make it for our haerenga into Hawaiki Apōpz- Don’t worry, this is just the beginning.

To our pou wāhine, Megan Tamati-Quennell, Larissa McMillan and Moana Tipa, without your guidance and encouragement Hawaiki Apōpz would still be a dream sitting on the couch.

Our cousin Kommi Tamati-Elliffe for helping us keep the right kēhua in and handing over of our ao Hawaiki Apōpō into the most capable hands at the Blue Oyster. Deep gratitude for your karakia and guidance taku hoa.

Our chef and in house photographer, Alex Wong. Fark cuz we are so lucky to be captured by you. To be fed by you. To be loved by you.

To our tamariki, Kaahuia Te Kahika, Irihapeti Te Kahika, Iraia Blewman, Ãio Te Uruao Tamati-Elliffe, Sienna Newbery, Te Kanae Newbery, Waikawhia Newbery, Ruruhira Newbery, Manukaimiro Newbery. YOUS ARE WHY WE DID THIS!

To our Blue Oyster room mate and cousin ilish thomas, spending this week with you in wānanga was magical. Your grief is boundless love. Ghost Hikoi 2 brings our Gus so close.

And lastly to our mate (passed ones) let us continue to speak hā into your ingoa, we know you are helping us steer the waka back into the stars. ✨

Kupu aroha @te_ikahoungata
Oro @thealienmaratk me Iri girl!
Shot by @tahuone.uku
Edit @ngamoolie taken in Blue Oyster Art Project Space by @thealienmaratk

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4 months ago

Rā tuarua! running it straight to Hawaiki Apōpz
🫡✨📐👩🏽‍🎨🏉💙🦪🤓

Big phat ngā mihi ki a @jordangravyemms rāua ko @koakiteao the install ninjas 🩶 couldn’t have done it without you guys !

📸 @tahuone.uku 💕 by @thealienmaratk

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4 months ago

NAU MAI MOKO MAI!!

Nā mātou te whiwhi! These incredible local artists will be warming the stage for us on Saturday night!

The Moko’s are a collective of self proclaimed “Urban Māori” emerging from the creative heartbeat of Pōneke. Soundscapes born from a rich blend of indigeneity and urbanism weaving te reo Māori me ōna tikanga through their music in explorative new ways.

‼️ GIVEAWAY CLOSED ‼️
We are doing 2x giveaways for our show on Saturday. Just repost this and you’ll be in the draw! Remember to tag us so we see it!

3 more sleeps then we’re launching!! taken in Meow by @thealienmaratk

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6 months ago

ORO ATA SPOTLIGHT: MARA TK

Mara TK has worked across the globe as a producer and songwriter with artists Kimbra, Just Blaze, Mos Def, Georgia Anne Muldrow, and SA-RA. Mara has also had a career composing soundtracks for visual artists, film and television, supporting indigenous led projects from Aotearoa to Australia and the Middle East.

However, it is his own people’s kaupapa that sustain him the most; “Māori have a beautiful poetic language and a rich history of stories and oral histories that connect us to all living things. At some point a cousin is going to tap you on the shoulder to come and work with them, it might be that they need some beats, a soundscape or they might only need me to peel potatoes, I really live for those phone calls...” by @thealienmaratk

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6 months ago

Playing a solo set with my Ōtaki haumie @thealienmaratk and Pōneke based @mauri.aura ✨🔮✨Saturday 23rd of August all proceeds will koha Mohammed and his whānau in Palestine via the beautiful people @weareyourwhanauinaotearoa 🌿 •Afternoon Matinee show•St Peter’s Hall Paekakariki 🌊 doors 2pm•all ages•no booze•bring your Kui 👵🏽🔥🫖 tickets through @undertheradarnz or hit my link $30 waged 🍉 $15 unwaged. SHARE WIDELY WHĀNAU 🏄🏽‍♀️ gorgey poster by @hinewaka_haututu 🍄 taken in St Peters Village Hall, Paekākāriki by @thealienmaratk

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a year ago