A note from Peter Knight

Ŋurru Wäŋa traces notions of home, belonging, and displacement. In the two parts of the title track, Sunny Kim intones the words of Korean poet Yoon Dong Ju’s poem, Another Home, in counterpoint to Daniel Wilfred’s song, sung in the Wáglilak language. Ŋurru Wäŋa (pronounced Wooroo Wanga), translates as ‘the scent of home’, and as we travel we long for that fragrance, passing the bee, guku, making the bush honey while the crow circles calling overhead.

This theme – this search for a sense of belonging – is at the heart of what drives Hand to Earth, a group of five people, who come together from different backgrounds, different birthplaces, and different musical approaches to share our songs, and by doing that to create something new. The six tracks on this album map our respective journeys into the now and express the connections that have developed within Hand to Earth over the years we have travelled and played together.

We each have our own relationship to this place, its difficult history, its contended present, its clouded future. This music is perhaps a way of thinking through this, written in the scribble of electronics, in the sighs of the clarinet and trumpet, in the broad brush strokes of the yidaki, and the snap of the bilma.

The songs that sit at the heart of Ŋurru Wäŋa were recorded mid-tour on a day off in Melbourne. Daniel had a spontaneous urge to record songs from the song line of Djuwaḻpada who is an important figure in Wägilak dreaming. Djuwaḻpada walked through the land starting in Daniel’s country, Nyilipidgi, in central Arnhem Land and ending at the coast at Lutenbuy singing the place and everything that lives there into existence. Daniel’s song cycle traces the flight of the birds, the Mäḏawk and Wäk Wäk. It describes the seasons, and the Stringybark tree, Gaḏayka, that supplies the bark for painting, and the wood for the bilma (clapping sticks).

With the exception of The Crow, which was recorded in New York, these songs landed in single takes in one session recording just the voice, bilma, and yidaki with some synth drones and other materials. The rest of the sounds came later in separate iterative recording sessions, in which the settings for the songs were developed through spontaneous layering and rubbing back.

This process reflected the approach we take to live performance but stretched across time, our voices calling to one another. Creating connections – resonating, blurring, vibrating. 

credits

releases August 22, 2025

Daniel Wilfred – voice, bilma
David Wilfred – yidaki, voice
Sunny Kim – voice, percussion
Peter Knight – trumpet, electronics, synthesisers, bass guitar
Aviva Endean – clarinets, winds, electronics

Amalia Umeda – violin (The Crow)
Lawrence English – field recordings, atmospheres, bass synthesiser
Quinn Knight – percussion and SPD (Ŋurru Wäŋa Part 2)

Produced by Lawrence English and Peter Knight
Mixed and mastered by Lawrence English
Recorded and edited by Peter Knight at Florence St Studios July-September 2024
The Crow recorded by Michael Coleman at Figure8 Brooklyn NY 17 June 2024

Design – Traianos Pakioufakis

Thank you: Lawrence English, Piotr Turkiewicz, Amalia Umeda, Quinn Knight, Charlee Horni (Ngukurr Language Centre), Joel Moretta, Jerry Remkes, Matthew Hoy, Philippa Allan (Real Arts), Dorianne Roberts, Sam Curkpatrick, Hadley Agrez, Traianos Pakioufakis.

This project was supported by Creative Australia

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