![]() It is a spirit, and ancient connection,”, Xavier says his eyes lighting up when he speaks about the love for the instrument. The artist is closely connected to not just the music but also the various traditions, the spirituality, and the people on an individual and communal level. ![]() “To me it is less of an instrument but more of a spiritual tool.” Traditionally the Iraqi was used as a speech tool, that’s why the rhythms are based on the melodies of language.” In my music I use a lot of contemporary instruments. “I have been told, I play it differently. When I ask about the reactions of the indigenous people to the singer playing the traditional instruments, Xavier explains that they are community is encouraging of his use of the instrument. His presence is always around and he feels especially close to when playing the Didgeridoo. When he passed away, his spirit remained close to the artist. He took me to the country, the place where the dream stories come from of the Aboriginal tradition and introduced me to the Iraqi, giving me the blessing to travel with it”. That’s where the instrument, called Iraqi traditionally, comes from. “At young age, I was adopted by a Yolgnu elder from the northeastern Arnhem land. It is still the one that he plays to this day, he says. He got his first traditional instrument at the age of twelve. I practiced circular breathing on vacuum cleaner tubes, pieces of plastic, anything I could find.” The instrument is sacred in many Aboriginal communities and plays a special role for the musician as well. His trademark stage-setup features him behind a drum kit with a large Didgeridoo attached that he plays meanwhile drumming. Another constant is his use of the Didgeridoo. The political and spiritual messages have been a constant throughout the musical output of the singer. Xavier Rudd and the artist clicked immediately and even though they wrote remotely and under the struggles of the pandemic, the song turned out to be the result of a close collaboration of two distinguished artists. The song features J-Milla a young rapper and advocate from the Mak Mak Marranungu community. On his songs he uses the music to transport political messages like on the anthem for peace Ball and Chain. For Xavier that is the biggest power of the craft. Music, rhythms and melodies, move and trigger emotion. I understand the process a little better.” “ What did change is that now I am more aware of it. It is still the way Xavier expresses his pains and hopes. Over the past years, and the course of ten records, the process of healing through music has not changed. Music is a way of communicating.” New Collaborations It is in the trees, in the animals, in the birds. “The way we communicate comes from the earth”, Xavier feels. Finding the rhythm and the melodies in the nature surrounding us is something that has been done for centuries. And it has been used by every culture on this planet”, he tells me. For Xavier music has been and continues to be the healing force. The traumas of the violence affect all of us in different ways”. Not always an easy or positive one, the singer is aware of the injustice and discrimination that the colonial past brought upon the country. Drawing from the connectedness to nature, the album is inspired by the long conversation that Xavier continues to have with the grounds of his home country. Released after the record that Xavier Rudd created in collaboration with the UN Orchestra, Jan Juc Moon is a return to the roots of his expression through songwriting. Jan Juc Moon features some of the most prolific work of the artist so far. “I did a lot of looking back and reflecting, so it made sense for that song to be the title track.” Not much has been changed about the song but Xavier added the heartbeat of his son in the womb to the instrumentation making it even more personal. Not sure of where he was headed at that moment on his journey, the song had to wait ten years to finally grown into a piece of music that felt right for the moment. ![]() “ I felt like the moon was pulling me away from everything I knew and taking me somewhere else.” Back then, the song was not ready to be published, Xavier says. They put the bodies of the deceased into the trees to allow their spirit to ascent into the spirit world without hinderance from the ground.”Īt the time when he wrote the song, there the moon was the closest to the earth that it would be for a long time according to the scientists. Jan Juc is the Wathaurong word for the process of burying bodies in trees, an aboriginal practice. Jan Juc is the name of the town that I grew up in. ![]() The title track is a very personal one, Xavier Rudd tells me, calling from the sunny back porch of his Queensland home. Jan Juc Moon is the title of the tenth record. ![]()
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