Nikita Tu-Bryant presents her portrait of the artist as a young woman with a cabaret style performance of her 2016 album Before, And After Joshua.
One of the featured shows from the 2025 Auckland Live Cabaret Festival.
Of course, she fronts her expansive Soul and R’n’B outfit from Wellington, Kita. One of many appellations so we’ll use that one.
Kita was born in Taiwan and came to New Zealand before primary school. The Asian diaspora is a large minority group in this country and the Chinese predominate.
Kita is a multi-disciplinary artist, and she also moves in the world of videos and acting, music production, and the fashion world.
Joshua is an autobiographical experience of meeting a stranger who she immediately bonded with. Love at first sight, when the heart is caught in a massive Piha rolling surf. It does happen and Kita is also a Surfer Girl (a passing nod to the recently departed Beach Boy).
She approached this work in a stark, stripped back and minimalist fashion. Like Springsteen and his Nebraska. Lo-fi, acoustic guitar, naked and unadorned.
On stage with her are the Perfect Gentlemen. Dave Khan violin and Joanna, and Arahi Whaanga drums, playing the tom-toms like Mo Reed of the classic Velvet Underground live recordings.
We are starting on the Night Train, and it sounds like steam. Maybe diesel but not electric. This is not a bullet train.
We know it’s about love and madness, so the prelude is pure Robert Johnson’s Love in Vain.
Already we are primed for the loss. The red light and the blue light. Kita keeps the sex at bay, but she emphasises the impeding heartache. Your love is like a heatwave.
They meet the first time. The second time is a road trip, Dirt Roads, enroute to Joshua Tree.
Many hardcore Country Rock fans idolize the Joshua Tree motel and make pilgrimages to it. In memory of Gram Parsons death, and the place where his friends tried to burn his body. Captured by the pain and heartache in the same fashion as George Jones’ He Stopped Loving Her Today.
Kita strums on an acoustic guitar and brings some Country Americana (with a little swing).
You can take the highway/ I love the dirt road so much/ You can step on that gas.
Meet me at Deep Springs Creek. Never trust a bearded naked man on a mountain giving you directions.
Never trust a hippie (and set fire to them) said Johnny Rotten and the Sex Pistols. Part of their Cash from Chaos manifesto found on their Great Rock’n’roll Swindle album.
This is a mystical and spiritual path. The Ba is one of the seven components of the Egyptian soul. The Heart energy, which also means it connects to sex, and is therefore vulnerable to treachery.
Sampson was brought down by a perfidious Ba, Delilah.
Already. Maybe she knew she was closing one chapter back home, says the voice of the roving narrator. Leaving behind the giver of pounamu.
Tom-toms and violins combine to lay out a bright Pop melody, but those beats become tribal Indian drones. American Indian like Charlie Patton at a deeper level. He was a foundational influence on more than just Blues. An essential creator of Americana.
Lunatic. We are able to change our minds. Jazz Folk with Eastern cadences this time. Are we just fools of the moon?
Sometimes love isn’t enough. The song titled with a symbol may also be known as Djinn. The Genie. A keening lament and a last goodbye.
The Art of Getting Over Something. Transformation of pain through indie Pop. Here comes the surf (Surf’s Up from 1971 may be the last Beach Boys masterpiece).
Giant crashing waves, going from peaks to molehills, as two can finally stand together.
Arahi and Kita duet on a Country tune, written by the former and the comes out behind the drums to lay an acoustic guitar.
The performance closes with Kita’s Roaming My Heart. Roots Country style (therefore Americana) and a passionate ode to love. Love that burns. Like a ring of fire.
Nikita Tu-Bryant looks like she has tears, from the glitter make-up just under her eyes.
Rev. Orange Peel
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