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(1985) - explores psyche of place.  That is, where we live and how it affects the way that we think.  Even if you live on the more densely populated east coast of Australia, you are nevertheless still aware of the vast distances involved in travelling towards the centre (center), the north and west.
Red Earth  draws on several aspects of Australian aboriginal music and some of the distinctive features of the Australian landscape. This is approached not in an imitative way, but is an attempt to attain something of the 'essence' of the music and its relationship to the land - that is - its manifestation of a sense of 'place'.
In Red Earth :-
There are allusions to the rhythm of didjeridoo playing and the voice of the songman.  For example, the rhythmic interplay between high and low notes refers to a technique of didjeridoo playing where the primary harmonic is juxtaposed with the (lower) normal playing note.
Most of the phrases tend to be repetitive and end on descending melodic patterns.
There are rhythmic drones and chant-like phrases.
There is an overall sense of stasis and spaciousness, a flatness and repetitiveness which is  characteristic of so much of the outback landscape.
Although I have been interested in Australian aboriginal music for many years now,  the origins of this were a social and political awareness that Aborigines had little say in controlling their own destinies (too many decisions being made by whites), and that black culture and attitudes had not impinged greatly on white thinking - even after 200 years.  The ignominy of this being that such a two-way flow between cultures could only have enriched both cultures and created a closer understanding of each other.
As a musician it seemed to me that there were aspects of Aboriginal music that intrinsically reflected something of the larger environment, and, as a consequence, Australian aboriginal music has come to have a profound effect on my musical thinking.