Outback band The Desert Stars find musical inspiration on country with new album
The Desert Stars, an outback four-piece band, have finished recording their third album in a remote setting in Western Australia's Great Victoria Desert. The album is expected to be released next year.
For Indigenous songwriter James (Jay) Minning, writing about the struggles of his people while on country in Western Australia's Great Victoria Desert has provided a musical awakening. Minning is the lead singer of outback four-piece The Desert Stars, which has just finished recording a dozen new tracks for the band's third album in a remote setting.
The band members, who grew up together at Cundalee and Tjuntjuntjarra, about 650 kilometres east of Kalgoorlie-Boulder, gathered in Ilkurlka to lay down tracks for the third album, due out sometime next year. The remote outpost is a lifeline for outback travellers along the Anne Beadell Highway, an unsealed track stretching 1,300km between Laverton, WA and Cooper Pedy, South Australia.