Valentina Brave Releases Moving Homage to Australia's First Nations People
Soulful singer/songwriter, Valentina Brave has returned with a new single, “This Place Your Soul”. The song is a rare masterpiece, a powerful cinematic track that hits a deep nerve at the heart of all that holds true meaning for us.
An impassioned anthem that follows in the footsteps of great Australian songs like Goanna’s “Solid Rock”, “This Place Your Soul” pays homage to Australia’s First Nations people, acknowledging that we are all standing on sacred land that is the lifeblood of the oldest continuous culture on earth. A powerful collaboration between Brave and senior Dalabon singerman Victor Rostron, and produced by ARIA nominated artist Danielle Caruana (Mama Kin), the song was written to reflect Brave’s deep respect for the ancient custodianship First Nations peoples have over this country.
Brave’s phenomenal voice invests in every intentional word while Rostron features brilliantly singing a personal perspective about ‘belonging to country’ in his Kune language. The production by Danielle Caruana is something else. She has conjured the visceral feeling of ritual music and footsteps in the dirt and woven it together with progressive expansive composition. True artistry here and worth mentioning as it is one of Caruana’s earliest production accomplishments. The song concludes with one of Rostrons clan’s ceremonial songlines, Mimih Kunborrk.
Rostron also created the incredible artwork for the single, a Brolga Dreaming story that was painted especially for the track. The collaboration came about after many years of working together in music and arts in Arnhem Land.
“Collaborating with Victor on this track is such a huge honour. He is a friend and teacher of mine and I greatly admire him as an artist. He is an incredibly generous man continually wanting to share and connect all people to culture and language. We are very lucky to hear his story in this song. He is a visionary artist and I’m humbled and thrilled that we got to create this song together.”
“After living in the remote bush for many years with my family, I witnessed how much has been lost and destroyed through colonisation and how severely disconnected to our natural world most of us have become,” said Brave. “This is a big conversation as we face a future that literally depends on how we choose to move forward in our relationships with the earth and with each other.”
“‘This Place Your Soul’ is my very small way of paying deep respect by making an intentional piece of art that acknowledges first nations peoples sovereignty, ancient spiritual connection to country and that I am living on land that deeply, intrinsically belongs to someone else in a way that I will never truly understand”, said Brave.
Brave’s voice is otherworldly as she offers up nothing less than every ounce of her soul in every note she sings, proving again to be one of the countries most stirring and powerful singer songwriters right now. “This Place Your Soul” is not just a song. It is a journey into the heart of the Australian bush and a gift of insight . Brave and Rostron, coming from two vastly different worlds, have made something very special together.
