#gurrumul

Mala Rrakala - Gurrumul

I generally don’t listen to World music, just tends to pass me by. Maybe because of that Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu’s posthumous album “Djarimirri” came as a surprise to me.

Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu was a Indigenous Australian musician who passed away last year, due to liver and kidney diseases. He is the most commercially successful Aboriginal Australian artist so far and his first Posthumous album, released last month, just came to reinforce that, becoming the only second album of its kind to peak number 1 at the Australian charts.

The album is a presentation of traditional songs and chants from Yolngu but with an extra orchestra to help, and it’s amazing.

From the very start this feels like a different kind of journey, the very first track builds up for something big, and the entire album feels big, the chants, the orchestra and specially Gurrumul’s beautiful voice.

There’s some similarities between this album and orchestral pieces as a whole, movie soundtracks and the such as well, and it’s all ethereal and beautiful, but then Gurrumul starts singing and everything just takes up an entire level.