As the Matariki star cluster rises over Aotearoa this month, highly respected multimedia artist Tīpare (Ngāti Waiora, Ngāti Maniapoto) has returned with an evocative new single, ‘Stars Scars’.
Built around a striking vocal performance, the track explores tuku iho—the foundational te ao Māori concept of intergenerational values, heritage, and knowledge. The song finds its emotional core in a simple, poetic truth:
“The stars represent all that we come from and aspire to be, and the scars represent hurts that heal but leave marks.”
The songwriting journey for ‘Stars Scars’ began after a profound conversation Tīpare had with an individual who had spent significant time in prison. Moved by the encounter, she initially captured her thoughts as two separate poems before threading them together into a single, haunting melody.
The track’s raw, late-night vocal line came together during a moment of intense vulnerability when Tīpare was feeling exhausted and longing for loved ones. To finish the piece, she sought the quiet of her haukāinga (homeland) in Mōkau. Recording under clear, starlit skies, she tracked all of the song’s dense harmonies in a single session.
Musically, those rich layers pay homage to the informal “shed harmonies” of her roots in Te Kuiti and the wider King Country, where family and friends would gather around an acoustic guitar to spin spontaneous vocal parts together.
To honor both the emotional weight and the organic evolution of the track, Tīpare is dropping ‘Stars Scars’ as a dual-track release. Listeners can experience the fully realized studio version, produced by Andrew Meyer and mastered by Neil Baldock, alongside her original, unedited demo. For Tīpare, sharing the demo offers an completely authentic, unfiltered look at an artist leaning into her flaws to find true connection.
Arriving just as whānau across New Zealand gather to reflect, remember ancestors, and look toward the future, ‘Stars Scars’ delivers a timely message of unconditional love, healing, and hope wrapped in sonic star dust.
0 Comments