Okay, here’s one that you might need to visit rather than revisit, which is not to assume that you lot haven’t heard of it – but there’s that chance. It’s a relatively recent album – released on the often-wonderful Rattle imprint; a small label with big ideas around providing a quality package. They release CDs – in this online/steal-what-you-can-whenever-you-want age. They make albums with liner notes and covers, albums that are to be shelved, filed, like little books. Books with a story told in audio.

Pasif.ist is the Rattle debut of harpist Natalia Mann – she’s an ex-pat Wellingtonian. Look, I know nothing about her. All I know is that when I heard her music – nearly a couple of years ago now, I was totally, utterly floored. I was speechless – as in fact is this music. An all-instrumental set of nearly-jazz, sometimes-classical/ish soundtrack-like cadences. Ghostly, gipsy-dance dervishes and late-night reveries.

It arrived in the letterbox one day and I decided to give it a whirl. So there was the only real clue that this was a Kiwi artist – the fact that it was a Rattle CD. Apart from that I knew nothing about it. And so I just chucked the disc on and sat back. And then I played it again and again. Took it to the car. Back into the house. And on it went. Over and over.

Let me tell you, too, my son had just been born. I was trying to work out how I was going to keep up with my appointments – work, a full time job, CD reviewing, blogging, oh, and I’d agreed to write a book about music and then had left it a bit later than I realised…

Shit man, we all have problems and these probably sound super first-world or whatever  (“at least you have a job!”) – but fuck I have to say this music was a saviour; a balm, a tonic – it was the gas that got me through. It was the tall stiff drink, the pinch of sanity – the pinch for sanity. It was like nothing I’d heard before and then it was actually a bit like that rather glorious and lovely wee trio album, The Rite of Strings by Jean-Luc Ponty, Stanley Clarke and Al Di Meola (more on that album some other time some other place maybe). But that’s the closest comparison I can offer if you need an instant soundalike-soundbite. But this goes so much wider than that. This is deeper.

I loved this album for many reasons – chiefly, of course, because the music is gorgeous, so full of emotion and stirring; expertly performed and beautifully recorded and produced. The playing is full of subtle-wow moments, the percussion, the arrangements – the space. The glorious, beautiful space. The way a bit of snake-charming soprano sax can wind around the drums and then the percussion spills over and around.

Oh, and I should say this isn’t just a Kiwi who ran away and recorded this with some of Turkey’s finest contemporary musicians. There’s that. But there’s also some of New Zealand’s finest contemporary musicians on here – not just Natalia Mann but that wonderful knowledge on all things Taonga Puoro – Richard Nunns. Not just Richard Nunns though, that passage I described before, the way the drums and the sax engage in a dance – that’s Lucien Johnson (sax) and Riki Gooch (drums and percussion). Shit they’re wonderful players. I don’t often get to say this about musicians because – in the scheme of things I don’t really know that many, but they’re damn nice guys too. Great people. Smart. So full of ideas and talent and technique – bursting with the enthusiasm and charisma that goes beyond music but is so much a part of informing great music.

That must be something Natalia Mann has too – well, I’m guessing, but I can hear it here in her performances and songs. And I know she’s worked elsewhere in a range of styles including on the most recent Bic Runga album (released around the time of this). I didn’t think a lot of that but I liked Mann’s playing. And she went on tour with Runga and received a bunch of praise too. Understandably.

I’m rambling here – but then, that’s what I do here. That’s what this is about. I’m finding my point, eventually…

You see this album is wonderful just because of how it sounds but it was also this lifesaver of sorts – for me. It created a calmness when I needed it. It arrived at the right time.

I was writing a book about NZ songs and do you think I wanted to hear any of that music? Like fuck I did. I’d done the listening. Killed some of them songs – done them to death (they’ll come back – some of them have, some of them will stay dead. And that’s also good). So this album was that relief. It was a constant inspiration. It was the soundtrack to the writing of that book (On Song – it’s now on bargain tables at the Warehouse I believe, or it’s in your library. I don’t want your money, I’ll never make a thing from it – but I’m pleased I wrote what I wrote. And some people have told me they were pleased to read it).

Those late and sleepless nights were mostly because of all my work, attending performances and writing about them, thinking up blog posts for a daily deadline, getting home from punching out inanities on a keyboard in an office somewhere and then sitting down to write at a book. Oh, and at this time – stupidly, but wonderfully – I’m also trying to become a father. The most important job I’ll ever have. (Maybe it is the only one I’ve ever taken seriously?)

Anyway, so this music – this glorious, gorgeous, beautiful sound from Natalia Mann and her assembled band – is able, also, to be the soundtrack to late night nappy changing and crying bouts and feeding; to me sitting up with Katy and us both – startled, punch-drunk with love and baffled at what it all means – soldiering on while gliding on a cloud.

So now every time I hear this album – and I’m back on it again now – I think about all those times that were so special even in their inane normality. But it’s a new routine that as it’s happening is just so weird. All of a sudden it’s normal for us all to be up at 5am one Friday morning with the jug boiling and the rain slapping down at the windows. All of a sudden there’s a 9am cup of tea to follow the 8am and 7am and 6am ones and every couple of hours I actually say – out loud – “reset” as I dash to sort washing and dishes and make a list of new supplies while the baby, that bundle of wonderful, sleeps. While we don’t. I never seem to. For days and then weeks and then months it felt like I’d never sleep more than two hours a night and when people said “oh is the baby keeping you up” I had to say, every time, “shit no, he’s wonderful. He’s perfect. He’s easy. He’s great. It’s me. I’m the dumb cunt that can’t say no to doing work. Low-paying, low-yield, low-reward work. I’m the dickhead that’s ruining my life. Him and his mum and this one beautiful CD are making it good”.

By the time I’m finished saying that of course I’m alone in my room, a grey fog all about and I realise no one was ever even asking me that question. It was just me. Staring off toward the place that’s closest to sleep. But hey, it’s okay. Because the wife was sleeping. The baby was too. And while I clacked at the keys in my best effort to wear them right out new worlds were opening up all around my ears. Someone else’s lifework – at that time, and who knows, perhaps for all time, was making one hell of an impact on my soul. Someone else’s passion.

So yeah, played this album again just the other day. And thought about all that shit and how it means nothing. To me, to you, to Natalia Mann. To anyone. But what else am I gonna do? I had to write something. And when I pressed play on the CD the keys on the laptop just wanted to dance. And I tell myself it means everything. And sometimes it does.