No interviews?!? If this is Neil Murray's idea of nirvana, then I'm out of a job in the next life. Wilderness is just one of the many-songs on last year's Calm & Crystal Clear that addresses Neil's love of the landscape. In a land where suburbia rules, he'd be right-behind the notion that a dull, flat land produces a dull, flat people. He found some of the things he was looking for by packing up and heading bush.

"I was brought up in an area where the landscape had been irrevocably altered because of settlement. The nearest bit of untouched land was the Grampians Mountain range, which I tried to get into as much as possible. I yearned to go to the Northern Territory because it was a wilderness area and I had this strong desire to work with aboriginal people because I felt that there was a lot to be learned. I wanted to find out about Australia but I was really finding out about myself too."

So while all his other friends at art school were saving frantically for their trip to Europe, Neil Murray decided to explore his own backyard. He was amazed at what he found... so much so that he decided to spend the best part of the last 10 years there.

"It was like a whole other country when I got out there. It was another country. There was a different language and a different culture."

In this other country he was befriended by the aboriginal people he met. He even started jamming with a few of them and formed a group called The Warumpi Band, which is a whole other story in itself.

"Most indigenous people throughout the world, especially hunters and gatherers, are very conscious of the environment," says Neil. "The reason they survive is that their lifestyles did a minimal amount of damage to that environment. They became part of the ecosystem."

I was chatting to Brad "no, honestly, I was never in Australian Crawl" Robinson, PR dynamo at Festival Records, and he reckons that you can't fully appreciate Neil Murray's Calm & Crystal Clear until it's cranked up in your car cassette recorder and you're out on the wide open road. I hit Neil with this idea.

"That's probably true in a lot of ways," he says. "I've felt things strongly when I've been driving in the country around about sunset and hills sweep past you and the road stretches ahead. To get the Iyrics for the song Calm & Crystal Clear I had to take a trip anyway, and I listened to the music in my headphones and wrote four pages of notes. Then I saw what was happening from that and I could articulate the feeling."

Like David Steel on his debut album of last year, Neil seems to be grappling with the old city/country dichotomy. Is it so horrible here in the big smoke? Neil says that 10 years ago he detested cities, but with rock music being the beast that it is, you can't really build up an audience by limiting yourself to the Northern Territory.

"I've got to the stage where I can enjoy the city as long as I know that I can get away. I think it's important to be here for a purpose, but I'd hate to be hanging around here doing nothing. I'm a bit perturbed by the suburban sprawl. For me, you either live in the city, right in amongst it in a close-knit community, or you Iive in the scrub. I couldn't stand living in the suburban wilderness. It's more lonely and desolate out there than I've ever felt in the centre of Australia."

And out to the dead centre is where Neil's about to point his old Ford panel van, His latest vinyl offering is a double single pack containing Ocean Of Regret and Clever Man from the album, along with two non-album tracks. His last two gigs are at The Den on Thursday March 29th, and the Annandale on Saturday, March 31st. Then it's off to the bush to write album number two.

"When my ears stop ringing I'll be able to hear the birds again, then what comes out will come out."

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