Frank Yamma
Countryman
Album · Worldwide · 2010
On his breakthrough fourth album, Pitjantjatjara singer-songwriter Frank Yamma pens some of the most aching songs of his distinguished career. “She Cried” is so full of deep feeling that it could in fact move even a casual listener to tears, while “Make More Spear” sees Yamma lament the steep toll of drinking. The hypnotic “Docker River”—named for an Indigenous community in the Northern Territory—and “Kunka Kutcha” are just as poignant sung in the Pitjantjatjara language. Yamma’s scratchy voice cracks and breaks all the more on “I Didn’t Know Who You Were That Day”, a tune about personal dislocation set in South Australia. And “Remember the Day” is a sparse, penetrating song of devotion.
Backed by drummer Bart Willoughby (No Fixed Address, Black Arm Band), guitarist Phil Wales Bilas (Little Murders), and key members of My Friend the Chocolate Cake and Not Drowning, Waving, Yamma cut this record in a remote country home near Goulburn, New South Wales. The songs are slow yet sumptuous, thanks to artful flourishes of piano and cello. Following proudly in the footsteps of his father Isaac, who performed solo and in Areyonga Desert Tigers, Yamma reverently instils the folk and blues traditions with evergreen First Nations storytelling.