Music review: Stiff Gins at the Trinity Sessions
Kaleena Briggs and Nardi Simpson brought their decades-long collaboration to Goodwood’s Church of the Trinity for a night of truth, humour, and the emotions of change.
Beginning in 2002, the Trinity Sessions has turned Goodwood’s beautiful old Church of the Trinity into a music venue much loved by artists and audiences. On Sunday August 24, the giant cross caped with rainbow colours and the Aboriginal flag off to the right side of the stage sets a fitting backdrop for a night of generational storytelling through song from First Nations duo Stiff Gins.
To open the night, young Ngarrindjeri and Gunditjmara singer songwriter Katie Aspel shares music she has been writing since she was 15 years old, expressing feelings of love, happiness and sadness, as she explains to the audience that she writes how she feels.
During Aspel’s set she acknowledges the legacy of her Great-Aunty Ruby Hunter with her song Kurongk Boy, Kurongk Girl – a song a about the Kurongk (Coorong). As young First Nations people, we always go to our Elders for story and knowledge, and Aspel’s original song Here is inspired by her trips to Meningie to visit her Nan and Pop, telling the audience that this song came from conversations with her grandparents, and wanting to write a song about survival despite what we have endured.
This opening set the tone for the “cascading arriving melodies” of Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta woman Kaleena Briggs and Yuwaalaraay woman Nardi Simpson. These two performers make up the Stiff Gins. The word Gin had historically been used as a derogatory word towards Aboriginal women, but the duo has reclaimed the slur to represent proud, talented, strong Aboriginal Women, acknowledging resilience and determination.
Kaleena and Nardi met in 1997 at TAFE – Kaleena had just turned 18, and was auditioning for a course that would build her the skills to sing at a RSL bar, which she jokes about on stage as being quite a big deal at the time.
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Nardi came and sat next to Kaleena in the room, and shame way Kaleena had turned her back because Nardi was “too cool”. They have now been performing together for 25 years.
‘I sat next to you, I turned away, it started a song that we sing today.’
This Trinity Session was to celebrate the release of their fifth studio album Crossroads. Produced by Syd Green, it is a pivotal career point for the duo as Australia’s longest performing, all-women First Nations band, affirming their status as determined matriarchal storytellers in the Blak music scene. Through their blend of folk, roots and First Nations language, Crossroads blends themes of transformation and belonging in change while also offering up familiar themes of resilience, self-discovery and letting go.
The performance balanced on the edges of truth, humour and the emotions of change which is often unsettling.
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Their song ‘Sweet Josephine’ tells a story of a little girl called Josephine, and her conversation with Nardi while picking her son up from school.
She asked simple questions like “How are you?”, and “What did you do today?” When Nardi responded that she wrote a song, Josephine proceeded with the question, “Are you proud of that?”, which made Nardi reflect on the interest this little girl took in her that one day. Unfortunately, little Josephine passed away not too long after that, and this song was an honouring of her existence in a moment in time during Nardi’s living.
The duo also shared their song ‘Something about a Cake Shop’, asking each other what cake would they be – a humorous conversation which ended with them being a little wild in the bakeshop (Kaleena is a New York cheesecake and Nardi a vanilla slice).
Through the many emotions, Stiff Gins ended the night grounded in each other’s language, Wiradjuri and Yuwaalaraay. Their song Dust (recorded on a Wax Cylinder on an original 1903 Edison Standard D model phonograph) is the story of how when their women pass into the next life they return as a small spirit bird – a reminder we are Country.
This night of song with Katie Aspel and Stiff Gins was not just a performance but a conversation with the audience, offering an insight into how they live, which is one thing I admire about our artists when I see them on stage.
Stiff Gins performed at Church of the Trinity on Sunday August 24. Crossroads is out now.
Jayda Wilson is Gugada and Wirangu artist and writer with Thai ancestry based on Kaurna Yarta, Adelaide, and the latest recipient of the Create SA and InReview First Nations Arts Writing Mentorship. Jayda is working with mentor K.A. Ren Wyld, an award-winning author and critic of Martu descent based on Kaurna Yerta, to write a series of articles for publication in InReview.