Aussie rock legends Midnight Oil have dished the details on their first longform release in almost 20 years.
Dubbed The Makarrata Project, the mini album will feature seven feature-stacked new tracks, including previously released single ‘Gadagal Land’, all produced by long-time collaborator Warne Livesey (who also helmed Midnight Oil albums Diesel & Dust, Blue Sky Mining and Capricornia).
The second single, a cut called ‘First Nation’ that you can check out below, features Jessica Mauboy & Tasman Keith, while other tracks include the talents of a wide cross section of prominent First Nations’ artists including Alice Skye, Leah Flanagan, Troy Cassar-Daley, Kev Carmody, Sammy Butcher and Frank Yamma.
Significantly, one song also features an achingly beautiful posthumous vocal by the legendary artist Gurrumul, while the LP concludes with an all-star reading of ‘The Uluru Statement From The Heart’, which features prominent Indigenous Australians Stan Grant, Ursula Yovich, Pat Anderson and AFL trailblazer Adam Goodes.
“All of these brilliant collaborators that we worked with delivered fresh interpretations of the songs, and brought strong new ideas to the album,” explains drummer Rob Hirst.
“This added immensely to the final result. We were particularly moved that Gurrumul’s family and label gave us these previously unheard recordings of him singing. They’re a real highlight.”
Midnight Oil will donate their share of proceeds from The Makarrata Project to organisations that seek to elevate ‘The Uluru Statement From The Heart’, which calls for the establishment of a ‘First Nations Voice’ enshrined in the Australian Constitution, as well as the establishment of a ‘Makarrata Commission’ to supervise agreement-making and truth-telling between governments and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
You can pre-order the album here, or peep the full track listing below.
MIDNIGHT OIL – THE MAKARRATA PROJECT (Official Track Listing)
- First Nation (feat. Jessica Mauboy & Tasman Keith)
- Gadigal Land (feat. Dan Sultan, Joel Davison, Kaleena Briggs & Bunna Lawrie)
- Change The Date (feat. Gurrumul Yunupingu & Dan Sultan)
- Terror Australia (feat. Alice Skye)
- Desert Man, Desert Woman (feat. Frank Yamma)
- Wind In My Head [Makarrata version] (feat Kev Carmody & Sammy Butcher)
- Uluru Statement From The Heart (read by Pat Anderson, Stan Grant, Adam Goodes, Ursula Yovich & Troy Cassar-Daley) / Come On Down (feat. Troy Cassar-Daley)
