Gunyal

Amazon.com
A member of the Tjapukai tribe in northern Queensland, Australia, didgeridoo player David Hudson has once again teamed with producer and ambient artist Steve Roach to create his fourth album, Gunyal. The title refers to a giant, prehistoric reptile whose mythic story has passed orally through aboriginal generations. Known to Australian aborigines as goannas, these reptiles existed some 20,000 years ago, according to archaeologists, and it's this kind of transcendent connection to an ancient past that spills through on Gunyal. Listeners will find their imagination swept into the Australian outback as soon as they push the "play" button. Sounds of the deep, rolling didgeridoo drone over rhythms created by click sticks, boomerang clap sticks, and rocks. While Rainbow Serpent and Woolunda: Ten Solos for Didgeridoo were more stark representations of the didgeridoo, Gunyal travels more profoundly into the aboriginal soul with Roach's ethereal crescendos and atmosphere. While plenty of CDs thickly embellish the didg with electronics or modern grooves, Gunyal relies on the simplicity of tradition and the subtle trimmings of ambient sound. --Karen Karleski

Tracks:

Brunga
Dreamroads
Split Rock
Goorana
Yalangi
Bulurru
Jumma

Amazon.com

A member of the Tjapukai tribe in northern Queensland, Australia, didgeridoo player David Hudson has once again teamed with producer and ambient artist Steve Roach to create his fourth album, Gunyal. The title refers to a giant, prehistoric reptile whose mythic story has passed orally through aboriginal generations. Known to Australian aborigines as goannas, these reptiles existed some 20,000 years ago, according to archaeologists, and it's this kind of transcendent connection to an ancient past that spills through on Gunyal. Listeners will find their imagination swept into the Australian outback as soon as they push the "play" button. Sounds of the deep, rolling didgeridoo drone over rhythms created by click sticks, boomerang clap sticks, and rocks. While Rainbow Serpent and Woolunda: Ten Solos for Didgeridoo were more stark representations of the didgeridoo, Gunyal travels more profoundly into the aboriginal soul with Roach's ethereal crescendos and atmosphere. While plenty of CDs thickly embellish the didg with electronics or modern grooves, Gunyal relies on the simplicity of tradition and the subtle trimmings of ambient sound. --Karen Karleski

Album Description

The ancient northern Australian wind instrument - the didjeridu - speaks with an unforgettable primordial voice to all who hear it. With the vast array of intricate rhythms and other-worldly tone colors, the elaborate improvisations that result strike a deeply buried chord in the mysteries of creation which seems to resonate at the core of humankind. Gunyal is an unforgettable illustration of this mysterious link.

The first evidence that Australia was once home to a large array of giant marsupials, reptiles and birds was discovered in 1831. The compositions on this recording center around the tale of the giant goanna, one of the most fearsome of these creatures. The giant goanna, along with all the other large animals of this time, was killed off by terrible droughts about 20,000 years ago. Aboriginal oral history remembers the giant goanna as Mungoon-gali and tells how it would lie in ambush and dash out to catch unwary animals or people.

From the beginning, Burunga pierces deep into the soul with the simple sound of a rumble. Yet as this rumble swells upward and outward, it creates a stirring within that is sustained throughout the recording. David Hudson also uses Burunga to phenomenally set the scene, literally transporting listeners to a vast, lively, and evolving untamed land, recreating the era of the giant goanna.

David Hudson has perfected and surpassed his best in preserving the ancestral sounds while expressing the continued evolution of the Aboriginal experience. Aside from pure listening pleasure, especially of Hudson's mastery of the didjeridu and sounds from down under, Gunyal can also be experienced as a story or a journey, offering a personal adventure unique to each listener.

Customer Reviews:

A great combination.......2001-11-12

While Steve Roach had worked with David Hudson to produce some of his previous albums, on this one, Roach and Hudson dive headfirst into the ethno-ambient ocean. Together, they have created a great work that seamlessly fuses the didgeridoo with electronic soundscapes.

Roach is an absolute master of these soundscapes, and, more to the point for this album, had already produced a magnificent two-disc work inspired by the world of the aborigine, Dreamtime Return. For that, he traveled to and stayed in the midst of the aborigine world in Australia, recording native music and learning much of the aborigine mythos.

David Hudson is an acknowledged master of the didgeridoo who met Roach for the first time during those travels. They decided to work together, but, from my perspective, this is the absolute best of their collaborations, a brilliant work of Australian ethno-ambient music.

Highly recommended.

Seriously spooky.......2000-01-15

This would make a great CD for Halloween. The combination of Steven Roach's creepy atmospherics,and Hudson's talent on the didgeridoo make for one spooky recording.

Native Australians speak of the Dream Time Well,this is nightmare time!

World Music: