Album Review: Kutcha - Blak & Blu

Kutcha Edward's third solo album Blak & Blu is all about the search for reconnection to past, family and culture. Born into an Aboriginal community on the banks of the Murrumbidgee River in New South Wales, Kutcha is among those displaced by the Stolen Generation. This is Kutcha's soul, his culture and his pain.

Blak & Blu has the decency of a folk album, the soul tingling of a blues album and the spine-jittering of a funk album. It takes you to deep places while maintaining a groovy flow, utilising a tension/release format with a slow, mellow song being followed by an on-your-feet blues jam throughout the record. It is a swanky album that reeks of deep emotion and respect. Blind Joe's Creek takes you to the country with minor strummed chords and rounded guitar tones topped with deep vocals, until it transforms into an uplifting, horn-driven chorus. Lil Bit Of Lovin' demands at least one part of your body keep its rhythm with its distorted slide-guitar driven tastiness and sweet woman's vocal accompaniment. Wait'n settles back down to a reminiscent gaze as Kutcha tells the story of his people, searching for truth and closure. The gliding rhythm swells under Kutcha's soulful voice as he tells of the pain of waiting for answers that may never come. Bidgee Blu's features horns and piano to create an uplifting track that deals with torment in a contagiously rousing way.

Kutcha's Blak & Blu is a contemporary album, but the content is more than 40,000 years old. This is just a debriefing of his people's story.