Gig Review: Rhian Sheehan and Arli Liberman @ The Great Hall, Massey University, Wellington – 21/11/2025

I’ve followed sonic artist Rhian Sheehan’s career for some time now. From humble bedroom studio creator to spectacular sell out shows in opera houses and festival halls, his music has always had a beautiful sense of organic introspection and exploration. Born in Nelson and long-time based in Wellington, Sheehan is a composer and producer known for fusing orchestral chamber music, piano, ambient electronica, and post-rock atmospheres.

Themes have varied immensely from early experiments in astral physics and space travel – Paradigm Shift (2001), Tiny Blue Biosphere (2004), Capcom Go! (2019) – to the natural world – Music for Nature Documentaries (2004), New Zealand Landscapes (2008), and travel and ecology (particularly on Standing In Silence (2009), which was inspired by a trip to India). But there’s so much more to his work. Commissions for film, documentaries, NASA and planetariums around the world, and unbelievable concerts with incredible graphics and light show collaborations. Stories from Elsewhere (2013), and A Quiet Divide (2018) moved him again, this time towards a lush, cinematic sound through the medium of ambient storytelling. He’s well praised by Richard Taylor at Weta Studios, and many other production houses, for his film work.

And it’s this palette of experience that Rhian draws on for his most recent collaboration with Israeli born, Kiwi based composer, guitarist and producer Arli Liberman. He is best known for blending ambient, world, progressive rock, and Middle Eastern influences into his work. Arli’s own is an impressive read. As a teenager, he performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival and at major peace festivals in Russia and the Middle East. He’s an award-winning screen composer. Audiences will best know him for his score for Sam Kelly’s film Savage (2020) which clocked him the 2021 APRA award for Best Original Music in a Feature Film. It was that work which made Rhian pick up the phone, call Arli and suggest working together in the first place.

You would have also heard his music in Ka Whawhai Tonu – Struggle Without End (2024) – a collab with Tiki Taane and Louis Baker, and last year’s amazing indie flick Rachel House’s The Mountain (2024). The theme for TV show The Ridge, currently on our screens. Or maybe you remember the theme for 36th America’s Cup (reaching an audience of nearly a billion viewers) or the opening titles of the FIFA Women’s World Cup or SkyCity’s All Blacks Experience exhibition. His most recent solo work was Portal (2024), featuring boundary-pushing atmospheric soundscapes, blurring the line between vision and sound. Phew, I’m exhausted just listing all that.

It was fitting that the duo chose The Grand Hall, with its high vaulted ceiling and imposing Colonial architecture, for their local live debut of Traces (2025), their first collaboration. Sonically, it’s a merge of Rhian’s more recent forays into textures of cinematic ambience and Arli’s expressive sound bending guitar performance. Tonight’s show was boosted by the talents of Ed Zuccollo and Riki Gooch, who are amazing musicians in their own right, creating additional layers of immersive and sometimes diffracted aural colour and texture. As were the performances tonight, which began smoothly and quietly with Plateau, Sentio and Drift, to begin this promised “ethereal journey through dark and moody worlds”.

Plateau begins with disembodied voices of a woman speaking with authority in French, her reverberated words like airport announcements layered over a drifting cloud of ambient drones and hum. With the room slowly filling with colour it feels like a blanket of comforting sound emitting from the stage across the aisles towards the back of the room.

Sentio (“I feel” in Latin) and Drift reveal Arli’s subtle influences, his guitar is played as an augmenter of sound, manipulated by a desk of loop pedals, digital filters, audio dispersers and other digital gadgetry. I’m purely guessing what was up there because in all honesty it looked like a mad scientist’s laboratory. Drift vaguely reminds me of Jean Michel Jarre’s composition but is more complex and directional. You can feel Rhian’s cinematic influences bleeding in. That emotive scene where Roy Batty dies in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner flashed to mind.

Although tall enough to look over, Rhian is completely surrounded by keyboards and digital devices. And the dark lighting also keeps him partially shrouded. We only truly see him when he ventures forward to play long dark notes on a guitar or turn the crank of a wired-up miniature hurdy-gurdy toy. The rest of the crew also remain out of the light. Arli, by contrast moves into and out of the spotlight as he plays, casting classic rock shapes with his body. Occasionally he addresses the audience, but mostly it’s his carefree even cheeky body language that does the talking.

Powercut and Myths were powerful interludes, but it was Arli’s performance in Sahar (Arabic for desert) that really impressed me, personally. Delicate guitar phrases sweep over ambient drones. You can imagine a desert landscape awakening to the promise of daylight. It’s incredible the way he’s transposed his guitar into the nasal drone of a nafir, like a chant calling the faithful to prayer across some medieval eastern town or desert. Behind on the screen as if to emphasise or make the point are repeated images of tiny boxes enclosed around an image of a sand texture. I’d hardly noticed the shadowy figure of Riki Gooch lurking in a corner until the ancient rhythmic beat kicks in. He creates a swirling percussive groove with a simple set up of a digital drum pad and cymbals. But the deep bass notes are truly felt from your heels through to head hairs, and it’s mesmerising.

For Specular the imagery is reflective of inner space, drifting oil through water or organic sea foam like bubbles spreading across textured surfaces. Maybe these are magnified microbials. Sam Caldwell’s creations are beautiful. I love the way you can make your own decisions and develop a personal narrative when you blend this music and visual art.

By now we are totally immersed in the experience, which is visual, audible and sensory. Immaru, named after a ghost figure from the game Destiny 2, has perhaps the clearest backstory, and with Arli’s delicate guitar work, appears as the sharpest. The building climax is surrounded by swirling colours and a search for light. It has overtones of sci-fi and manga and is a fitting and dramatic conclusion to the first half.

After a short break, we resume with the geographical epic Atlas, from Rhian’s 2018 album A Quiet Divide, followed by the enchanting Mum (from Arli’s Savage soundtrack), in which we get to see more sound manipulation from his guitar as the music shape-shifts from broad brush sweeps to orchestral dominance.

A change of gear brings Ed Zuccullo’s Earth Engine, which has a nice organic steampunk vibe to it. Until now, I’d barely noticed his presence. Not because he wasn’t there. All musicians blend their sound so skilfully that in all cases it becomes a unified beast, subtly textured, with only fragments and nuances to navigate individual performances by.

Perhaps the most conventional and upbeat track tonight was Riki Gooch’s seemingly Asian tinged lounge number, Dan Dan. Like a sophisticated cocktail on influences, everything it seemed, from 60’s cinema to Hong Kong gin joints, hints of ginger and spice in the percussion, which Riki blends shaken, not stirred, went into the mix. At least that’s how I heard it.

The final track of the night was a dedication to film maker and trailblazer Lee Tamahori, who passed away last month. To Arli, he said, he was a mentor and friend, as he was to many in the film industry. Arli commented that once, Lee had suggested Arli try to re-invent the title track to his film (Once Were Warriors) in “my weird musical style”. So tonight, they did just that, slowing down the original and ‘torturing’ the original grungy guitar work into an aching, droning theme that reached deep into your soul. It was the most incredible reinterpretation that I’ve heard for some time. Behind, the graphics, driven by Mike ‘Bizzy’ Bridgman, illustrated a rising maunga of light, accented by diagonals of red, like cyber versions of tukituki across the roof of whare. Powerful ending to the show. I’d not met Mike before, and this was a bit of an honour, as he explained how the images he displayed on the huge five metre square LED screen were created ‘on the fly’, like a DJ or producer does dropping samples and mixing beats, even using Ableton products to match up and synchronize with the music on stage. I was well impressed.

It would be difficult to accurately describe this show, because for every person, it’s a different experience. While I got into the drama and the journeys portrayed, my companion felt relaxed and transient. People behind were commenting on the graphics or Arli’s nuanced guitar work. Others, clearly into the tech, of which there was an insane amount on stage. Either way, the sold out audience left satiated. Some can critique ambient music as experimental and Avant Garde. But this body of work is entirely accessible by anyone, especially if accompanied by extraordinary visuals If you want to expand your horizons, I’d recommend you find space in your calendar and book a seat. Be quick, the rest of the tour is selling fast!

Photo Credit: Shannon Williams for Muzic.NZ
Photos from Wellington @ Massey Great Hall – 21/11/2025
Rhian Sheehan & Arli Liberman Wellington Gallery