Leatherman and the Mojave Green (2LP)

Leatherman and the Mojave Green is a triumphant homecoming for Troy Kingi, returning to the genre of music that ultimately enticed him into the music industry — rock.

Inspired in his mid-teens by the bands and musicians from the Palm Desert scene (Kyuss, Queens of the Stone Age, Fu Manchu) it was an easy decision for Troy to record the album at the home of Desert Rock — the legendary Rancho de La Luna Studio in Joshua Tree, California.

Troy Kingi is a storyteller with each album immersed in rich worlds — Leatherman and the Mojave Green takes us out into the desert.

And in this environment the album formed itself — borrowing sweaty heat from the sandy desert, eclectic melodies from the sunlit mountains, ancient rhythms from sacred caves and a sharp pointy punch from the Joshua tree.

The album is accompanied by Troy Kingi’s Desert Hīkoi, a four-part documentary series on TVNZ+, directed by Tom Hern (The Panthers) and featuring Serj Tankian (System Of A Down), Brant Bjork, Dave Catching (who runs Rancho de la Luna), revealing his journey to the Joshua Tree National Park in the US in search of inspiration for Leatherman and the Mojave Green.

‘The trip to Joshua Tree was a timely Godsend — at a pivotal point where I had hit a wall, a blockage, I was waning, struggling creatively with were to go to next with my music, the whole 10/10/10 thing, had it finally broken me?

Being in this place — one of the holiest of holys for me, the birthplace of the greatest rock album of all time Songs for the Deaf — it was hard not to be inspired by it all — by the crazy Martian like landscape, the people, the foreign-ness, songs started forming in my dreams, rushing to me from the heated horizon, I found my thing again — and it seemed to flow easily like it once did when I first started my journey 8 years ago. The sound we found is definitely different, it’s the most aggressive sound I’ve ever created.’

Troy Kingi