Gurrumul

Geoffrey 'Gurrumul’ Yunupingu, couldn’t have come from a more faraway place to be performing in Islington’s Union Chapel.

He was born on Elcho Island, about 350 miles from Darwin, off the coast of Northern Australia and sings in the Yolngu language. Yolngu artists and performers have been at the forefront of promoting global recognition of Aboriginal culture, and the land from where they are from is home to the didgeridoo of which they are masterful players.

But tonight there isn’t a didgeridoo to be heard. Gurrumul - who was born blind and has never learned Braille, use a cane or a dog to guide him and speaks only a few words of English - instead has brought with him something less stereotypical and far more precious – his voice.

Gurrumul has been playing and recording since he was a teenager, first with rock-influenced Yothu Yindi and now with his current band, Saltwater. For his debut solo album he chose to go acoustic. The songs are all quite similar in their style and mood, but carry much emotion and lyrical gravitas as Gurrumul sings with honesty and vulnerability of his life and his blindness.

He took centre stage with his guitar, supported by another guitarist, a string quartet and on double bass, his friend, producer and translator, Michael Hohnen, who is also the spokes person for the tremendously shy Gurrumul who really doesn’t say much.

To say he sounds like an angel, may be a little over doing it, but he really does have an astoundingly beautiful vocal that is powerful in its tenderness. He gently strums and picks his right hand-strung guitar played left-handed, whilst singing seemingly simple songs about the world that he is from that seem as far away as Narnia or Middle Earth.

At first, I wasn’t sure whether I’d be able to hold my attention for a full hour whilst Gurrumul sang of natural symbols related to his homeland, his family and his ancestory – salt water crocodiles, birds I’d never heard of... All the while, a projector served to educate the audience to the translation and significance of the lyrics, and slowly I – like the rest of the audience – was lifted to some other place that left my heart panging for a better life.

Gurrumul invoked a presence in that chapel that cut across a huge divide of culture and spoke straight to the heart. Lyrics like, 'Soon my grieving turned to the colours of the sunset’, left me wondering of what inner life and vision a man born blind has of the world, and left me convicted of my own ignorance and flippant disregard for the world I move in.

Gurrumul has won plenty of awards and his album has gone platinum and is of course, hugely popular in Australia. He is over in the UK for just a little longer and you can catch him tomorrow night in Brighton playing at St Georges Church.