@details 3 = Telek
George Mamua Telek
Origin through MDS
Review by Norm Dixon
It has been a long wait for those who were captivated by George Telek's Australian recording debut way back in 1991, when his collaboration with Melbourne-based Not Drowning, Waving produced the classic Tabaran album.
That innovative album brought together the talents of Telek and many musicians from his home of Rabaul, Papua New Guinea. Rabaul and the Pacific Gold Studios are the centre of a vibrant music industry.
On Tabaran, NDW was prepared to step back and allow listeners to hear the quality of contemporary PNG music on its own terms.
It is a great pity the producer David Bridie, from NDW, has chosen to depart from this approach with Telek's first Australian-released CD. All too often George Telek's marvellous voice struggles to make headway against an ocean of studio echoes and whooshing sounds, electronic mock-orchestras, tacky synthesisers and sickly sweet keyboards.
It is a too obvious attempt to make Telek palatable to listeners who patronisingly associate anything originating in a Third World "tribal" country with "relaxing" and "spiritual" (read bland) ambient music. True to form, gratuitous sounds of chirping bugs and running water abound. I don't know about anybody else, but that just makes me itchy!
PNG pop is rough around the edges and alive with percussion and steeped in bluegrass-like guitar work. The influences of traditional choral music and missionary music are thrown into the mix. Naturally, it is not immune from the effects of western rock and country music. It is much more urban than it is traditional: it is more about drinking beer, eating Twisties and having a good time than it is about meditating in Glebe, Fitzroy or Fremantle.
Telek won superstar status in PNG playing string band music, first with the Jolly Rogers Stringband (named after a pub in Rabaul), then with the Moab Stringband. String band music, popular throughout PNG, is based on acoustic guitars and ukuleles introduced by missionaries who had worked in Polynesia. PNG's rock bands may have added electric instruments, but the pacey country rock feel persists. Bridie's attempts to "clean up" this rootsy amalgam is misguided.
This may sound harsh, but Telek could have been a great album. Instead it is just a good album, well worth getting hold of. There are some excellent tracks, not all overproduced. I suggest you program your CD player to avoid the worst of Bridie's intrusions by starting with "Desi", a great example of the string band sound, followed by "Waligur Iau (Alice)", a rollicking slice of electric string band rock. "Abebe", one of the highlights of Tabaran, is a more gentle reprise but still stands out.
"Melbourne City" sounds like a song that could have come from the pen of Paul Kelly. Telek proves himself to be an excellent writer of tunes that just won't leave your head. Sung mostly in Tok Pisin, the sentiments of the lyrics are straightforward songs of travel and love lost. Special guests include Kev Carmody, Archie Roach and Yothu Yindi's drummer Ben Hakilits, who originally hails from Buka, off Bougainville's northern tip.
Despite its nearness and popularity, the music of PNG and the Pacific has been terribly neglected by record companies, promoters of "world music" and radio stations. It is a sad comment that only two significant recordings from the region have been released here since 1991. Given the opportunity to hear the music the way the people of region hear it, there is little doubt in my mind that people here would lap it up.
George Telek is appearing at the Port Fairy Folk Festival on March 9 and 10.