Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By Miiesha, EMI 2020.
Miiesha is a young indigenous woman who comes from the small Aboriginal community of Woorabinda in central Queensland and Nyaaringu is her debut album release.
The album is a collection of stories that represent her life journey and tells us about her community and people.
Miiesha has linked the songs together with short spoken passages, many by her late grandmother and one by former Prime Minister Tony Abbot, that introduce the songs and comment on the experiences of indigenous people.
As you can imagine Tony Abbot’s contribution stands in stark relief to the musings of Miiesha’s wise Grandmother.
These spoken interludes are extremely important in placing the songs into their respective contexts and to the flow and continuity of the album.
Miiesha says of the album; “(These are) stories that I feel I wanted to tell or that I needed to speak on…The interludes are recordings of my Grandmother speaking. For me she was and always will stay with me as the strongest voice in my life so I felt she had to be a part of this with me.”
Listening to this album is to engage in a conversation between Miiesha and her Grandmother and I thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience.
In fact, the experience felt like a cross between a history lesson and therapy session and I went straight back to the beginning to hear it all again.
This album is the first work that I’ve heard from Miiesha and I can see why she has attracted so much interest within the music industry.
She’s already received the Queensland Remote Music award for the first single from the album, Drowning, and she’s been profiled in newspapers (including Sydney’s Sun Herald), magazines (Frankie, Pilerats, Purple Sneakers, NME) and Triple J has championed her and included her on their playlists.
Nyaaringu is an interesting album that requires some listener involvement to get the most out of but it has introduced us to a talent that I’m sure we’ll be hearing a lot more from in the future.
