Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Leading Australian guitarist Ken Murray performs the music of celebrated composer Christopher Sainsbury in this musical journey across the Australian landscape. At the heart of this album is the song cycle 'Brackish Songs', featuring the ethereal vocals of Merinda Dias-Jayasinha: a reflection on the interrelationships of cultures and heritage, place and song, inspired by the mingling of salt and fresh water in mangroves and estuaries. The title work, 'Singing Stone', brings in Joel Brennan on trumpet and Don Immel on trombone with amplified guitar to explore the deep connection with Indigenous ceremony and song in the sandstone country of the Dharug people of the northern Sydney basin. 'Pacifica' uses a simple, drifting theme to evoke both the waves of the Pacific Ocean on Australia's east coast and, playing on the meaning of the word 'pacific', a sense of movement both towards and away from peace. 'My Eye Has Seen My Desire' explores the natural poetry of the voices of churchgoers in congregation: the music of individuals coming together into community yet never losing their own uniqueness. 'Simple Truths' offers a moment of stillness and mindfulness in a tumultuous world, with pulsing chords from the guitar ebbing and flowing like waves on sand. And 'North Country Sketches', its title a light-hearted nod to the English composer Delius, paints a series of musical miniatures of Australia's 'top end', the Northern Territory.