Louis Baker has never rushed a song, and ‘Mighty Tree’ sounds like it. Released today, the track is the third single from the New Zealand soul artist’s long-awaited debut album ‘Trouble’, due out on 9 October, and it might be the most personal thing he’s put his name to yet.
The song was written after the sudden loss of a close friend, and Baker builds it around the Māori proverb ‘Kua hinga te tōtara i te wao nui a Tāne’, roughly translated as ‘a mighty tōtara has fallen in the great forest of Tāne’. It’s the phrase used in Aotearoa when someone significant passes, and Baker leans into it rather than around it, using the image of a fallen tree to sit with grief instead of rushing past it.
Musically, it leans into warm, analogue textures: syncopated percussion, tape-warmed low end, swelling strings and a guitar line that curls rather than cuts, all built around a voice that’s always been the main event. It’s a groove made for sitting still in, not skipping past.
This is Baker’s first full-length after years of building a reputation the slow, credible way. Earlier singles from ‘Trouble’, including ‘All We Need’ and the title track, picked up support from BBC 6 Music, BBC Radio 2 and Jazz FM in the UK, and both cracked the top five of the New Zealand singles chart. The album itself runs nine tracks deep, working through loss, love and what community actually means when you need it most, and if ‘Mighty Tree’ is any guide, it isn’t going to be a comfortable listen, in the best way.
Baker will take the record on the road through October and into November: solo shows in Dunedin, Queenstown and Wānaka, then full-band dates in Napier, Mount Maunganui, Auckland, Christchurch, Wellington and the Taranaki Arts Festival. For an artist who’s spent years as the ‘one to watch’ in UK radio circles, ‘Trouble’ feels like the record built to close that gap at home.
‘Mighty Tree’ is out now. ‘Trouble’ lands 9 October.
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