<p><span><span>- Have you heard Gordon Koang? The hip new name of Australian indie music has just dropped <em>Unity</em> - his eleventh album, but first as an Australian resident.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Indie label <strong>Music in Exile</strong> has put out a number of releases this year, but Gordon Koang is its star attraction. So there is quite a bit of buzz, though maybe not as much as there would have been in Koang's country of origin, where he has been described as the "Michael Jackson of South Sudan".</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>In 2014, when his Nuer ethnic group were being massacred in the South Sudanese civil war, Gordon sought asylum in Australia with his cousin and percussionist <strong>Paul Biel</strong>. Their wives and children remain in a refugee camp in Uganda. As a blind man who has experienced disability, civil war, displacement and separation, the album title of <em>Unity</em> is not a mere platitude.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Koang's songs are in a mixture of languages, and vary thematically from the melancholy of <em>Asylum Seeker</em> to the simple joy of <em>Stand Up And Clap Your Hands</em>. Musically the songs all have a percussive and twangy danceability even when the melodies are more yearning.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>The rhythmic and melodic heart of the songs is Gordon's playing of the thom, a Sudanese instrument that is kind of a cross between a banjo and a harp and sounds quite unlike anything in the usual pop and rock music world. Besides his cousin and djembe player, the rest of the band is made up of white Melbourne indie musicians who do a great job jamming out Gordon's melodies.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>I would say the songs on Unity sound more reminiscent of the polyrhythmic dance music of Congo or Mali than the more arabic-inspired pop we often associate with East Africa, though of course all of us in the western world have much to learn about the diverse cultures of that continent.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>And that's really the most beautiful thing about Gordon Koang's emergence into an indie music world that rarely throws out anything startlingly new. His story brings with it the realisation that out in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne there's a blind refugee who also happens to be a pop superstar; a reminder that there are other instruments and styles of music out there; that there are other possibilities waiting to be discovered.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>In recent years we have seen media and political campaigns demonising asylum seekers and Sudanese migrants to take advantages of our basest fears of the unknown. But they can be counteracted by the experience of different people and cultures. Gordon Koang is an exciting arrival on our music scene not just because of his joyous and intriguing music, but because the <em>Unity</em> he has to offer is more than just an album title.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>- Andy Paine.</span></span></p>
<iframe style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=146081375/size=large/bgcol=ff…; seamless><a href="http://gordonkoang.bandcamp.com/album/unity">Unity by Gordon Koang</a></iframe>