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WOMADELAIDE 2001
program highlights
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Telek (PNG/Australia) |
| Renowned singer-songwriter
George Telek has become one of the first Papua New Guinean singers to take
his music beyond the coral seas of the Pacific to the modern world.
Since his early work with Australian collaborator, David Bridie on recordings
such as Tabaran (with Bridie’s now defunct band Not Drowning Waving), and
a self-titled album in 1997, Telek has toured Australia enjoying considerable
success, and to the UK for the first time in 1999. Here he recorded
Serious Tam at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios, marking the first ever
Papua New Guinean band to release a record with Real World internationally.
The year 2000 saw Telek and his band perform at WOMAD USA in Washington.
The sound of Telek is essentially acoustic, the gentle guitars underpinned
by ancestral drums such as the kundu (an hourglass shape) and the garamut
(massive slit logs), together with his lyrical and evocative songs,
sung both in the Tolai language of Kuanuan and in a creole called Tok Pigin.
Added to this a contemporary pop sensibility, after all, as Telek says
“The islands are isolated but we grew up with music like The Beatles”.
His first stop after landing at Heathrow was to have his picture taken
crossing Abbey Road. For Womadelaide 2001, David Bridie will perform with
Telek and band. |
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