Led by former Yothu Yindi member and all-round musical genius Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, the band contains another seven members all from Elcho Island.
While the music is western, the songs are mostly in language with many of the words taken from ancestral chants.

The album – which was two years in the making - opens with the haunting Djilawurr, which captures the calling and crying of two orange footed scrubfowls as they return to their mound.

As with the designs on Aboriginal paintings, the song is terrific in itself but contains layers of meaning about these two totemic figures that only local Yolngu would have access to. And so it is with the rest of the album, which constantly tantalises the listener with the sense that so much of each song’s meaning is hidden from public view.

The title song for the album, Djarridjarri, was written by the band’s other songwriter, Manuel Dhurrkay. Backed by a latino rhythm, its theme is the blue flag totem of Manuel’s grandmother.

Other songs on the album explore different styles of music, ranging from reggae (Reggae Music) and jive (Elcho Island Boys) to the big anthem sound of Let’s Work Together.
The album finishes up with Wata (Healing Wind), a traditional chant featuring singers Kevin Djamina Gurruwiwi and Barry Gutitjawuy Garawirrtja.

This is a very sophisticated and well-produced album, and much of the credit must go to Darwin-based Skinnyfish Music which has laboured for many years to bring the sounds of Aboriginal Top End bands to a wider audience.

Saltwater Band, like so many other Indigenous acts in the Northern Territory, is virtually unknown down south.

Let’s hope that with this album they finally achieve breakthrough.