Cooee, a kindred collaboration between multidisciplinary artist Kirli Saunders and musician-producer Mark Chester Harding, gifts us their latest release ‘Daisies’.
A gift from the soil that birthed wisdom from the land, ‘Daisies’ follows their debut release ‘Sacred Women’s Ways’.
Cooee brings together the decadent voices of Mudjingaal Yangamba and the violin performance of Eric Avery/Marrawuy, a Ngiyampaa, Yuin and Gumbayngirr artist; ‘Daises’ is a pivotal beacon that focuses on what grounds us in troubling times.
Based on the poem Planting from Kirli’s celebrated poetry collection Kindred (Magabala Books, 2019), ‘Daisies’ is about returning to and becoming one with the land. There’s an unmistakable groundness that comes tethered and entwined with connection to country. Kiri meditates on the inspirations for this latest release:
“This poem (the lyrics for this song) came to me when I had dirt under my nails. I’d been pulling weeds from the garden and planting new seeds in old soil. As I did, I kept feeling like the land had wisdom to share – little reminders to listen to Country and the Ancestors. Little reminders about going slow and in Country’s time – to be more like the flannel flowers on the escarpment and the paper daisies in the yard.”
Perhaps it was set in stone, a thread spun long before the two ever crossed paths, woven from a shared connection to land and an unspoken alignment of creative impulse. In 2019, Mark wrote the initial melody for what would become Daisies — the same year Kirli penned the poem. Four years later, they would finally meet.
The song’s repetitive, cyclical piano line is anchored by off-centre, brash drums, nodding to the sonic grit of Alt-J and The National. “Daisies came together in about 15 minutes on the second day we ever wrote together,” Mark recalls. “A lot of Cooee music is about finding or expressing joy, but there’s a depth and darkness to some of Kirli’s words that’s best suited to a slow and fiery kind of instrumentation.”
Cooee is the collaboration between Gunai poet and artist Kirli Saunders OAM and producer-songwriter Mark Chester Harding, blending words, music, and visuals.
Their debut single, Daisies, is out now.
