About
Nyoongar songmaker Maatakitj (skinny legs like spears) sounds like nowhere else—dusky guitars and dance fusing with the Indigenous song traditions of Western Australia’s deep south as joyfully defiant language activism.
He sings in Nyoongar, one of the many endangered Indigenous languages of Australia.
Maatakitj performed at World Expo Osaka 2025, toured Australia with Angélique Kidjo in 2024, composed for the Kronos Quartet in 2023, and collaborated with Paul Mac on the dance album Noongar Wonderland in 2022.
As Clint Bracknell, he is Professor of Music at UWA, co-produced the podcast Song With No Boss, and creates Nyoongar language resources and productions.
Released 3 July 2026 on the cusp of NAIDOC week, the new single KARKAINY (car-gain) is sung entirely in Nyoongar (not a selectable language on streaming services).
KARKAINY is the first Maatakitj release of 2026, leading the way for new Nyoongar music in the months to come.
“There’s an old Nyoongar story about Karkainy the brown falcon, carrying embers and flying far and wide across country to share fire, maybe the first fire. When the old people would light a fire, they would sing ‘karkainy koorliny’ and remember the story. Brown falcons are still carrying and lighting fires today, around the southwest and even into the desert too. No one’s been singing their old song for a long time, and there are various reasons for that, but to honour that old story I made a new song.”
