David Bridie

Classically trained Bridie's career began in 1983 with John Phillips on the song "Moving Around" using a borrowed 808 drum machine. The subsequent recording of atmospheric instrumentals sparked the duo's enthusiasm for the free-form ambient soundscapes that became the basis of their group Not Drowning Waving and lay the seeds for their interest in film music.

Subsequent years saw an expanded band recording in empty church halls, composing film score compositions and working with canoe makers off the Papua New Guinea coast, all of it inevitably spilling over onto their music. His offshoot group My Friend the Chocolate Cake created emotive, wryly-observed chamber pop.

In 2000 Bridie released the first of four solo albums, where the brave new world of computer technology returned him to the innovative music of the earlier Not Drowning Waving plus opened up new possible worlds. Weaving around Bridie's voice, soulful lyrics about the human condition and electric piano are a universe of found sounds - from Papua New Guinea conch shells to short wave radio morse code and bass and drums. For the last 20 years, his collaboration with Aboriginal artist Frank Yamma has brought tales of Australian life from two very different perspectives.