Piwaka is the solo project of Kiwi, Josh McGettigan. Taken from the Maori word for a New  Zealand-native bird, the moniker is a head-nod towards his home country, although, with a half-decade spent living in various parts of South America and Europe, the name also suits a man who likes to take flight.

Influenced by the finger-picking style and alternate tunings of Jose Gonzalez, the all-in-one method of jazz guitarist Martin Taylor, and with other influences including Bibio, Sufjan Stevens, Beirut and Radiohead, McGettigan refuses to accept that more than one guitar and a voice are required to create lush, dappled, and fulsome soundscapes. McGettigan originally learnt the piano as a child before focusing on the guitar throughout high-school. Since then, with his time spent playing lead guitar in indie-rock, blues-rock, and jazz bands, teaching himself the ukulele and the harmonica, assembling 12-piece ramshackle-orchestra versions of songs for friends’ house parties, and studying Irish traditional style fiddle, his appetite for varied musical projects has proved difficult to satiate. 

However, it wasn’t until late last year that he turned his attention to the recording studio. Having grown up feeling a strong connection to his Irish heritage, with countless hours spent listening to Irish musicians like Sinead O’Connor, The Pogues, Christy Moore, Mary Black, and a boot full of Irish trad, McGettigan took a break from working as a lawyer in London and moved to Galway on the Irish West Coast - a place where music literally oozes from the streets - to learn from the source.

Playing in pubs, house-parties, and after-dinner jam sessions, with career musicians, should-be career musicians, and passionate newbies alike, McGettigan tried to absorb as much as possible. Plenty of inspiration for songwriting ensued, as McGettigan started to mix up centuries-old Irish trad songs with his own barely-finished compositions. This led to him stumbling across the majestic violin skills of Irene Ní Shúilleabháin, the heart-stopping voice of Éadaoin De Faoite (who had, almost criminally, never before set foot in a recording studio), and the ideal producer in Pete Duffy. His vision for an EP started to crystallise.

The result is “beag” (pronounced “be-yugg”), Piwaka’s debut EP. A word that looks like the English word “big”, but is actually the Irish word for small, its subversive double-meaning perfectly encapsulates both the EP and the journey that led to it. While the EP is, in real terms, a small achievement, comprising a mere 4 songs recorded over a couple of weeks on the rugged Irish West Coast; to a man who has been playing, dreaming, and breathing music his whole life, it seems like anything but.