Samoans tell of the ghosts, or ‘aiku, that inhabit Ofu Island. To this day, locals speak of spirits that roam the island playing tricks on the unwary, the immodest, or the disrespectful.

This cycle of work was mounted with these legends in mind, written and performed in my home a couple of doors east of Ofu's tiny airport, which has been many a mortal's gateway into and out of this place.

Semi-generative in nature with instrument tones fed into loops, delays, reverbs, or other scenarios, conferring my basic performances into extended complex ghostly afterlives maundering long and far from the sounds' origins.

As a consequence, distortions and expected-unexpected epiphanies appear from nowhere only to slowly dissolve into shifting tides of sound. Unplanned interactions and conflicts arrive, exist, depart. Moods arrive and pass like weather. All is changed and unchanging. Organized and confused in a flux of decaying memory. Redefining from moment to moment.

Eno is the obvious inspiration at play here, and though I've not dogmatically followed his methods I have endeavored to keep the instrumentation similar and under-decorated much like his music for airports. The fourth piece, "earth, moving", would probably be more appropriate as an adjunct to "On Land" with Richard Wright guesting.

Eno and ‘aiku stories aside and more directly, inspiration came after a rebuild of the runway on the island was ceremoniously declared "completed" in July 2022 on a day marked by photo-ops and handshakes. The ribbon cutting and re-opening of the facility was effectively rendered pointless by a king tide and swell that threw stones from the sea onto the airstrip, scoured out a portion of it, rendering it useless for several days.

And then, a month later, the earthquakes came . . .

With that in mind, now that I think about it, perhaps the ‘aiku were unhappy with their island being paved and voiced their displeasure.