Mark Atkin & Erkki Veltheim

Mungangga Garlagula

published in The Wire No.513, London, 2026

Excerpt

(...)

In fact, much of Erkki’s music levered a sharp criticality into the sonic mis-en-scène of Mungangga Garlagula. Far from sober, respectful accompaniment, the music — full of improvised curlicues, atonal interiority and modernist gravitas — activated a discursive response to Indigenous identity. The duo’s considered collaboration highlighted interracial complexity by refusing typical humanist tropes which fumble politically-correct frames of reference. Melodiousness was avoided, as was terse confrontation. In place: a moving sono-narrational acceptance of Otherness.

This was most apparent in Mark’s three didgeridoo performances. Each was accompanied by backing tracks of layered didgeridoo recorded by Erkki, occasionally mixed with instrumental textures by the ensemble’s individual performers. Listening to these engrossing dimensional realms of bass ‘dronality’, it became apparent that the term ‘extended technique’ does not apply to the didgeridoo. Here is an instrument wonderfully alien to European mechanical acoustics and instrumentality. In these moments, it was like Mark dissolved himself into a figural presence, sharply instating his drones not simply through sound occupying space, but through being present on land.

Text © Philip Brophy. Images © TURA.