A bridge to Farsi

Christine White’s bilingual album takes flight with the help of instruments ranging from Greek percussion to lush strings.

- Graham Reid

THE RAVEN PROJECT, by Christine White Three decades ago, singer songwriter Christine White was a fixture in cafes and at gay, lesbian and folk festivals. With her three-piece band, she could be a fiery electric guitarist, there were radio appearances … and then she seemed to disappear.

In fact, the woman who grew up singing in Baptist and school choirs, had pulled large crowds to Auckland’s famous Java Jive for her edgy folk-rock and whose group won a Gluepot Battle of the Bands, had moved into teaching music and writing for children’s theatre productions (works by Margaret Mahy, Joy Cowley and Lynley Dodd). And exploring wider horizons by enrolling in Victoria University of Wellington’s composition/sonic arts course.

Instead of electric guitar and traditional song structure, she began deploying a variety of noise-making objects, cut-up methods and made her own instruments, notably “The Workbench”, which supported a bunch of unusual items on a Black+Decker    workbench.