Description
CD with gatefold wallet and 8 page lyric booklet.
Includes unlimited streaming of Green Footprints via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Acknowledgment of country makes a respectful beginning to any event held on – always was, always will be! – Aboriginal land. So too for this contemplative collection of (mostly) Australian songs. We are indebted to Deb Jones, director of the Solidarity Choir for the gift of her song and the loan of her comrades to record it.
Other songwriters from within our ranks continue this theme: Dallas De Brabander, inspired by the First Nations’ respect for country and by the beauty of the Gandangarra bushland she lives in, asks us to Listen Deep To The Land; Sue Gee always found Wolli Creek to be a special place and honours the people who fought, and still fight, the ongoing battle to protect it from ugly polluting motorways. Other places honoured by our friends include Newell Highway, in John Warner’s adaptation of an old hymn tune, and Australia’s forests and woodlands in Wendy Joseph’s Of Trees And Humankind.
From the land to the sea now. Kaye Osborn, formerly of our alto section, lets us hear of frightful damage to our planet’s oceans in a Whisper On The Waves. Englishman Andy Barnes long ago envisaged the brutal extinction of the Last Leviathan, and we keep singing his poignant lament so as to keep alive the international whaling ban that prevents it from coming true.
Before we return to exclusively Australian material, I’ve borrowed Cole Porter’s famous tune to put out a planet-wide warning that if we don’t exert ourselves to protect the planet then we may see that Everything Goes. Non-Australian listeners should be aware that our Liberals, referenced in the last verse, are a party of plutocratic conservatives, not to be confused with US American liberalism.
The stark contrasts, moral and otherwise, involved in Arctic oil drilling gave Sydney songwriter Brian Jonathon his inspiration for Oil On Snow. I’m glad he obliged us with an uplifting end to the song!
Our dear friend and former colleague Christina Mimmocchi was having a bad week and gave herself – and now quite a few Sydney choirs – some healing comfort with Let There Be Peace. In the peaceful surrounds of one of our favourite folk festivals, far from the curse of unsustainable consumerism we met Melbourne songwriter Annie Kennedy and were moved by her message to leave behind Unnecessary Things.
People who know of the threatened environmental catastrophe facing all living things will also know Fear. Ecopella member Paul Spencer usually deals with it with merry wit and satire (see either of our previous albums) but here has written profoundly serious music that passes from sombre solitary darkness into the warm light of friendship. In that same benign radiance we close this album with two songs of mine: Earthly Love is a secular hymn to the powerful bond uniting activists around the planet, whether known to each other or not; while Blue And Emerald takes that co-operative message noisily out into the street to celebrate the integrity of our movement’s commitment to our common purpose.
Ecopella – Green Footprints
CD review by Tony Smith
TN2576-90 – $25
This album was assembled in 2018 by this important choir of environmental activists conducted by Miguel Heatwole.
Miguel arranged most of the tunes in the few years before then but ‘Acknowledgement’ (Deb Jones) and ‘Let There Be Peace’ (Christina Mimmochi) arrived fully formed.
He also wrote new lyrics for ‘Everything Goes’ set to music by Cole Porter and wrote and arranged ‘Earthly Love’ and ‘Blue and Emerald’.
You can learn about specific places in New South Wales at ‘Wolli Creek’ (Sue Gee) and the ‘Newell Highway’ (John Warner).
Further warnings, yearnings and perennial hopes are expressed in ‘Of Trees and Humankind’ (Wendy Joseph), ‘Oil on Snow’ (Brian Jonathon) and ‘Unnecessary Things’ (Annie Kennedy).
For its choral balance and beauty, ‘Whisper on the Waves’ (Kaye Osborne) has to be among the best tracks here.
The high and low voices work perfectly in harmony.
The arrangement ensures that by avoiding an over complicated canon form, the humming basses provide the perfect back line.
On some other tracks, I kept yearning for a soloist to take a clear lead.
‘Acknowledgement’ and ‘Listen Deep to the Land’ (Dallas de Brabander) benefit from this arrangement.
As always with Miguel’s music, I could not avoid the feeling that he is too modest here and should let his own voice lead more often.
Clearly, he is a great team player.
The classic among these pieces is undoubtedly the import, ‘The Last Leviathan’ (Andy Barnes).
This lament for the fate of the whale might no longer seem necessary but with powerful countries currently displaying an inclination to flout international conventions, it would be unwise to think that whales have a secure future.
Happily, some of the locally written songs have the potential to become choral classics.
Paul Spencer’s ‘Fear’ and ‘Let There Be Peace’ almost fit this category.
John Warner’s song is set to a hymn tune and Miguel’s ‘Earthly Love’ has the sound of a large choir’s output in a church with great acoustics.
Of course, the best acoustics of all are provided by the wider environment, and you can almost hear nature participating gratefully in these songs rather than being a passive observer.
Given the reluctance of the world’s biggest polluters to make any sacrifice to address climate change and the procrastination of Australian governments over species extinction and habitat destruction, we need people with the courage of their convictions.
As ‘Earthly Love’ reminds us: ‘Every sister, every brother, each who takes an active part, Feel the breath of hope expanding, Let it be the song you hum’.
Not surprisingly the album sleeve is in recycled cardboard.
This supports the choir’s motto of ‘Causing Harmony to the Environment’.
These 19 sopranos, 15 altos, 8 tenors and 8 basses use their voices for the good of us all.
Not only that, but under Miguel Heatwole’s skilful direction, they produce some beautiful sounds.
Would that the powers that be hear this album, not just hear, but listen.
Ed: Miguel Heatwole has four albums listed in his name and four albums listed under Ecopella available for sale from the Trad&Now website.
Most of these albums have also been uploaded to Trad&Now Live! radio platform and can be heard there from time to time, but particularly during the recent arrivals hour from 12 noon daily.
