Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Gondwanaland - Terra Incognita


Many thanks to Scot for sending me this brilliant
album from one of Australia's truly great bands.
I saw them play at least once at a Maleny folk
festival, you would be hard pressed to find a
better band to see under the stars and up
in the mountains.

On a break from bore drilling in 1983 Charlie McMahon
recorded with synthesizer player Peter Carolan the
Gondwanaland Project instrumental album Terra Incognita,
which prefigured world music by almost a decade.
This ground breaking debut showed the didjeridu could be
a key component in contemporary music,
setting the mood & driving the rhythm.
Documentary film makers embraced the album for its
distinctly Australian ambience.
Midnight Oil drummer Rob Hirst called this ‘a seminal album’.
It was the first time didj was played with regular rhythms,
making it a base for contemporary song arrangements.
The experiment worked so well that Charlie & Peter dropped the
“Project” tag and engaged percussionist Ed Duquemin
to launch Gondwanaland as a touring & recording act.
As well as regular pub & club shows Gondwanaland played
epic outback tours and the live energy induced the up
tempo style more evident in their next 4 albums.
Gondwanaland hold the record for Australia’s largest
live performance with their SOUND CLOUD
performance to 120,000 at Sydney Cove in 1988.

Track List
01 Emu
02 South Road
03 Eye In The Sky
04 Danger
05 Empty Sky
06 Landscape
07 Drought
08 Anthem
09 Morning
10 Pulse
11 Eagle

Download Here

Charlie McMahon with Midnight Oil.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Aah! Hugs at the tartstrings, this one....

Still got it on vinyl. Somewhere.

Thanks

Hingehead said...

Hey Bob, the zshare link is dead, I don't suppose you'd consider a re-up. I've got the vinyl but I'm a slacker and I want to avoid ripping it. Cheers.

bob nebe said...

Its up again ciao bob

Hingehead said...

Cheers Bob, you are gentleman and a scallop. Keep up the great work. Being an ex-Sydney boy now in FNQ it's been an education checking out the early Brisbane scene. One day I will rip my vinyl of Big Hope, Little Town which hasn't made it here or Ausrock as far as I can tell. Has some great early 90s indie.

Thanks, Again.

bob nebe said...

your welcome hingehead, far north queensland hey, it must be bloody hot up there its bad enough here
That rip sounds great
ciao bob