“When I saw the promotion for it, and the idea of having a listening space for our music, I was like, yeah. I’m down for that” – Raymond Sagapolutele
From his early days as a faipese for his Samoan Methodist Church in Mangere, Faiumu Matthew Salapu, has always been pushing the boundaries of music.
And this was especially evident when he was on the keyboard.
“Any mekokisi will kind of recognise me from back in the day, I was always putting beats on our peses,” Faiumu says.
“Talkboxing over something or just taking traditional hymns and realising, that’s the melody that’s the minor. I can put, ‘I aint mad at cha’ underneath that so that was always my thing.”
Experimenting and “flipping” music, as he says, was always part of his DNA, inspiration he’s drawn from his love of hip hop.
Since those early faipese days to now, he’s continued to build and refine his craft to the point that he’s now known as Anonymouz, the music producer.
It’s that same creativity that has earned him some big projects across the country, with his work featuring in various arenas and spaces.
His latest work/project now focuses on music fans by elevating their music listening experience to a higher level, in a space called SLS Listening Room.
“The best way to hear music is on a pair of headphones and you see the whole sonic spectrum, but you’re closed off from the world. On the other end of the spectrum you’re in a big arena with everyone, but you lose the fidelity of the version that you fell in love with,” Faiumu says.
“That’s what we’ve been trying to curate, trying to sit in the middle zone. You still get the loudness, the bass, the physicality and the fidelity of the headphones, but you still get the ambience of the people in the room. That’s how we positioned it.”
Faiumu has split the experience across his two storey studio. Downstairs he has set it as an experience room, where fans can interact with the producer and ask questions.
Upstairs is where he has strategically placed speakers to give a full surround-sound experience for music,where listeners can have something to eat or drink and just enjoy the music.
SLS Listening Room had one of its first sessions a few weeks back, hosting a ‘listening’ session of rapper Mareko’s latest album release, Act II. Producer Ricky Paul who worked on the music for the full album was also present, holding a Q&A with those present about the work on the album.
“Matt shared with me that he wanted to create a place literally where you can have a listening session,” Ricky says.
‘You know most of them are done at the clubs, and half the time you don’t get to hear the album and everyone yelling over each other and it’s not really a nice environment for people and fans to engage with the artist one on one.”
Also joining the session was Mareko’s brother and photographer Raymond Sagapolutele.
“When I saw the promotion for it, and the idea of having a listening space for our music, I was like, yeah. I’m down for that,” Sagapolutele says.
“You know normally we’re like listening in garages anyways, so having those sort of places where Matt can set up the quality to the point it’s like being in the studio with the artist, is just a way to really honour that artist and their craft.”
SLS is in its early stages but Faiumu says after some small tweaks and changes, it will be good to go.
He hopes that, with his creative work and pushing boundaries as a musician, that it inspires the next generation of artists, creatives and upcoming Pasifika talent.
“In music you realise that it’s not about the left and the right, you need both, you need on a pair of headphones both the left and right to have the full picture. And that’s how I feel with music production as a career and music production as a fan,” Faiumu says.
