This week's PBS Feature Album is Kanana, the debut album from award-winning Noongar woman and Naarm-based artist Bumpy.
Since debuting with her 2020 single ‘Falling’, Bumpy has guided listeners through a world in which vulnerability is strength and power self-assured. Her voice, buttery and soulful, commanded with a natural confidence, and her impactful storytelling, layered atop songwriting that traversed genre with precision and bold curiosity, have long positioned her as an exciting new addition to a flourishing wave of young soul and RnB voices channeling classic sounds.
Translating to “land where the sun sets” in Noongar, Kanana is testament to an important chapter in Bumpy’s personal life, one which saw the artist return home to connect with family and Country, tracing her history and all the while furthering her journey of language revitalisation. There, she was able to reflect more on how best to preserve and carry on the important language work of her late Nan (and namesake) Rose Whitehurst, questions to which Bumpy and her family have increasingly turned towards in recent years.
Holding this sense of lineage and reciprocity, it’s a process of preservation and storytelling
which finds beautiful, resolute resonance at the core of Bumpy’s debut offering, yet extends well
beyond the bounds of the record itself. And though the cover art bears her name alone, Kanana
was an album created by many, with Bumpy’s mother and siblings alongside her each step of
the way, the presence of her Elders at her elbow. Tying together multiple strands of her history, the early musical DNA of Kanana formed as a result of Bumpy’s Melbourne International Jazz Festival commission with the Australian Art Orchestra in 2024. Bumpy’s travels back to Country were a key element of this commission, ultimately leading to the creation of her acclaimed show, Tooni. A raw and deeply personal
exploration of her connection to land, her people and importantly, her language, Tooni
captivated as part of the Melbourne International Jazz Festival – a profound celebration of the
power found in family and community.
Kanana is an album that captures Bumpy’s sharp sonic curiosity, and masterful ability to use
light and shade to highlight a broad spectrum of emotion through the music. To go on the
Kanana journey with Bumpy, is to experience a myriad influences that have informed her
process – chill, lo-fi moments such as ‘Essence’ or ‘Lessons’ acting as brief, swirling portals
between the record’s multi-hued stylistic movements, before arriving at the impassioned
crescendo of closing duo ‘Pressure’ and ‘Untangling’.
Key to Bumpy’s creative output has been the consistent amplification of her creative community,
her practice coming to embody values of expansive, interconnected mutuality. Throughout the
world-building process of Kanana, she has incorporated the talents of her peers and fellow
artists across disciplines. Lifting each other up, no part becomes separable from the whole and
Kanana finds strength in collaboration, resilience in community.
Tune in all this week to hear tracks from Kanana and PBS Members have the chance to win a copy of the album on vinyl: simply email your name and membership number to before midnight Sunday October 12.
Not a PBS Member? Join now!
TOP TRACKS WE'RE LOVING THIS WEEK
Genesis Owusu - 'Pirate Radio'
Lady Wray - 'What It Means'
Cookin' On 3 Burners - 'Only Words' feat. Natalie Slade
Iti - 'Lost In A Tangent'
Hiss Is Bliss - 'Deep54'
Cold Hands Warm Heart - 'luxury bat' (Grace Ferguson Remix)
Spirograph Studies - 'Melody Driver'
Essendon Airport - 'Malibu'
Lothario - 'The Animal'
MONGEEYA - 'Warpaint'
