Teeks has got soul. Right from his honeyed opening vocals on Just For Tonight, it’s obvious that this singer-songwriter has a knack for channeling raw hair-raising emotion. He first pricked ears in 2017 with the critically acclaimed EP The Grapefruit Skies and has since been steadily growing an international fan base, singing to sold-out audiences and bagging prestigious awards such as Best Māori Artist at the Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards. Deeply personal and sincere, his 2021 debut Something To Feel is exactly that - an album you don’t hear but feel, just as intensely as Teeks does. The songs follow a linear narrative, drawing on his experiences from the past couple of years. Throughout all 12 tracks, Teeks succumbs to his emotions and allows himself to be vulnerable. This comes to a zenith on one of the album’s best songs, Remember Me, where he declares his love for someone knowing full well that it could be unrequited. Teeks lives in a double reality between both Pakeha and Māori traditions. While the idea of questioning toxic masculinity and being emotionally aware might be seen as relatively new in some communities, Teeks knows that he’s returning to a mindset millennia old. He explains that “we call it progressive masculinity but for me it's more of a reclamation of ideals and values that my Māori ancestors always knew and knew the power of so it's reconnecting to that part of who I am.” Teeks pours a lot of Māori influence into this record; while he writes in English, he draws on some principles used in te reo Māori, saying that it’s “such a poetic and metaphoric language that I can kind of pull on those principles in the way that I write in English.” Coming at a time when people the world over are experiencing some sort of emotional turmoil, there couldn’t be a better time to side with Teeks and embrace fragility. © Abi Church/Qobuz