The land between Marrickville and Sydenham was once a swamp.
The Gumbramorra as it was known, was a rich, biodiverse ecosystem that waxed and waned with tides and rainfall, and served as a vital source of food, water and medicine for the Bidgigal people. At first largely ignored by European settlers, who called it a “slough of despair”, the swamp was sold and drained in the 1890’s to make way for industrial development. A sense of damp lingers in the area, the ghost of the swamp appearing during periods of heavy rain and flooding. I first listened to Mangrove City Blues walking down Victoria Rd in Marrickville, what would have been the Western boundary of the Gumbramorra, wading through the Sydney swamp.
On their first collaborative album REDBRICKGOTHIK (2023), industrial-doom band BRACT and mainstay of Aus underground hip-hop BAYANG (tha Bushranger) personified Sydney a harsh, corrupt, industrial hellscape, painting an alternate and deeply resonant portrait of the Harbour City. On its follow-up, Mangrove City Blues, BRACT and Bayang shift their focus from the concrete to the natural wetlands buried underneath, exploring the horrors and hardships of city living through a futile, absurdist lens.
Mangrove City Blues is not a rehash of REDBRICKGOTHIK by any means. Its themes and storytelling feel bigger, more ambitious, with references to Greek mythology and religious imagery alongside the mundane. Science-fiction author Ursula K. Le Guin and French absurdist Albert Camus both get name-dropped, as does Pemulwuy, the Bigdigal warrior and historical leader of colonial resistance. The musical palette has also expanded, with each track bringing in fresh ideas to compliment BRACT’s distorted soundscapes. There’s shades of emo on the guitar arpeggios of “Bogwalkers” and the undeniable vocal hook of “Les Fleurs du Mal” sung by Heart Armour’s Kash Bhai, while the mostly acapella “La Via Dolorosa” plays like a processional hymn. Bayang also flexes his vocal agility across the album, from harmonising with Marcus Whale on the former mentioned track, to his anguished auto-tuned lament on “A Meeting in the Grotto”, alongside more traditional flows performed with grit and total conviction.
Hip-hop has always been a vehicle for truth-telling, for documenting the lived experiences of the marginalised. On Mangrove City Blues, we veer into the territory of speculative fiction, one of the most compelling examples being the track “Crinum Pendunculatem” (Latin for swamp lily), a snapshot of everyday life in a Sydney overrun by floodwater. “It’s Venetian streets outside / Monsoon season all the time../ I seen the local pool get turnt to a creek / I watched the birds build homes in the reeds” Bayang raps over a chopped break-beat and haunting electronic-piano chords. It’s understated, yet incredibly effective worldbuilding, and with flash-floods and torrential rains becoming more frequent across the country, maybe not too far off from our reality.
The swamp sits in the realm of the unconscious; the mysterious, liminal space between the two opposing states of water and dry land. Just as so-called Australia remains in limbo between its history and future, refusing to properly grapple with either. On Mangrove City Blues, BRACT and Bayang may not show you the way out of the swamp (it’s the “blind leading the blind” after all), but they will hold up a mirror. You can choose to look away or to face it; the flood will rise either way.
Words by Louisa Christie