Mystery and missing tape inspire album

Amissing father, amixtape, and a name without a face; behind Troy Kingi’s new album is the true story of two missing people and a lost tape.

The Ghost of Freddie Cesar is the fourth album in his ‘‘1O 1O 1O’’ series – 10 albums in 10 years in 10 genres. Brought to life by Troy Kingi and the Clutch, this is his most personal work to date, and a Wellington audience can catch it live on October 23 at San Fran. The journey began in 2007 when, while going through his missing father’s belongings, Kingi, left, found a cassette tape.

His parents broke upwhen he was young, and his father disappeared while driving from Rotorua to Auckland at Christmas, 2005.

Despite search efforts and occasional reports of sightings, there has been no reliable trace of him since. Usually when someone passes away, their loved ones have closure and somewhere to grieve. ‘‘This is unfinished business,’’ Kingi said.

It was always in the back of his mind. The whole car went missing, and Kingi still noted every car of the same make and model, in case the driver looked familiar. The tape Kingi found ‘‘looked pretty old and had this hand-scribbled name, ‘Freddie Cesar’ on it, and on the back was just handwritten names of songs’’.

When he listened to the tape, it ‘‘brought back a strange nostalgia’’. Perhaps his father had played it when Kingi was young?

The tape was a live recording, with clapping and audience noise between tracks.

Kingi found it therapeutic to transcribe the songs, although some parts were barely discernible. ‘‘It was a connection with my dad.’’

Fast forward five years and Kingi was moving house. He stumbled on the transcribed lyrics from the songs, but couldn’t find the tape. ‘‘I turned the house upside down.’’

But no luck. He never found the tape again.

So he turned his efforts to finding out more about the mysterious Freddy Cesar.

His search didn’t turn up much, but listening to the lyrics he surmised Cesar might have been a Vietnam veteran, struggling with PTSD, drugs, alcohol, and his inability to settle back into civilian society.

The album, which Kingi described as ‘‘50 per cent me, 50 per cent Freddy’’, is his own interpretation of Cesar’s life in a funk-filled landscape, lyrics taken from his original transcribing and some melodies from memory.

‘‘It felt like it wasn’t really about me when I wrote it. It’s aweight off my shoulders.’’

For further information about the album and concert, check out troykingi.com