When I first attempted to call Gordon Koang, the phone call rang out and a disembodied female voice told me that the number had been disconnected. Slightly confused, I tried a second time and found Gordon on the other end of the line. Without reading too much into the mundanity of service problems, I was struck by the overwhelming contrast between these two greetings - one cold and unpleasant, the other beaming with charisma and genuine warmth. Where surface-level formalities might have taken place, Gordon was immediately engaged and endearingly candid, cheering my name and telling me his “network has really struggled [today], but I’m good now hearing you’re well.”

If you’ve been lucky enough to catch a Gordon Koang live show over the past years, you’ll recognise this same sense of instant joy. You’ll rarely spot him onstage without a grin radiating from beneath his signature wrap-around sunglasses and emanating throughout entire audiences, a presence that’s just as compelling as his blend of traditional Neur music and irresistibly buoyant grooves. For an artist who’s endured as many ups and downs as Gordon has, it’s remarkable that he exudes as much positivity as he does. But as our conversation reveals, his glowing disposition comes from an unwavering belief in the power of his music as a means of bringing people together, something he hopes to achieve overwhelmingly with his eleventh album Unity, following its release today.

Our conversation naturally starts at the beginning, as he winds me through his 32-year-long musical history - which began in Ethiopia in 1988 as part of a seven piece band with “a lot of thoms”, the traditional Neur instrument that Gordon still plays now, albeit modified to suit his unique style of playing. Next he’d head to Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, where he would play a lone thom - “the [same] thom I play here now in Australia” - alongside a six-piece female choir. Eventually, Gordon would form a band in newly independent South Sudan, broadening his musical scope to include guitar, organ, bass and violin, and establishing a larger international presence that would finally take him and cousin/collaborator Paul Biel to Australia in 2013.

However, when civil conflict broke out in their home country that same year, Gordon and Paul made the hard decision to remain in Australia, an experience that Gordon explores on Unity’s opening track ‘Asylum Seeker’. Alongside tangles of chiming thom and rich keys over a bouncing beat, Gordon sings “we know you’re waiting for your permanent protection visa, we know you’ve been waiting for a long time”, but despite the song’s earnest focus, Gordon’s voice teems with compassion rather than frustration. Just weeks after the album was recorded last year, Gordon and Paul were finally awarded their permanent visas after six years of waiting - affirming the track’s advice for patience, and enabling the pair to focus on making more music as a means of funding the relocation of their whole families next.

Now based in Dandenong, Gordon explains there are both differences and similarities in sharing music in his new home. “Any country you come to, you need to change the style, to go with the environment. My music is a seed, it’s growing here in Australia,” he shares. “I get a very good band from Music in Exile, and [the band] work very hard and they’re very clever. I teach them the line and they catch it quickly, and then we make beautiful music [that sounds] professional. Back home, when they see me online, they say ‘Gordon, you have become a professional man!’, which is good!”

However, it seems that the captivating nature of his music is a constant wherever he performs. “I went everywhere… in Africa, Egypt and Uganda, and also playing music in Ethiopia, and when I play in front of [audiences], they sing the song with me. And then we come here, the music becomes very good because my band will pick it up very quick and then I give it to audience and they feel happy. Even the person who don’t know my song is dancing.”

From beginning to end, Unity is a glorious listen, with its rich palette of instruments, backed by swarms of exuberant percussion and an overwhelming amount of relentless grooves. Remaining front and centre the whole time, Gordon’s voice charmingly sparks in the most invigorating moments, or as the songs stretch out, his esoteric thom playing grabs our attention as it weaves amongst the radiant rhythms. At the album’s core is Gordon’s passion for positivity, as he explains, “my mind is tuned to the love, to the peace among communities so that [people] can have peace amongst themselves, and also the unity between this community and all the communities. That’s why I call it Unity album.”

Wholeheartedly a celebration of togetherness, despite borders, backgrounds and differences, it’s fitting that Unity is Gordon’s first release to a growing Australian audience. With a mission to spread this point, he believes the album will connect with “the love between woman and husband and children”, for it to “ enter into their community into another community, family to another family, and then my love will enter into the world."

As our conversation wraps up, he reiterates the power of his message, hinting at an ideology that explains his never-ending enthusiasm and determination to share joy. “When we were in our mother’s stomach we were there for nine months, and when we come into the world, if we are very lucky we have 100 years, and if we’re very, very lucky we have 120 years. These are the years that God gives to us - we need to do our best, and we need to make people happy before we go.”

“If you are a doctor, a lawyer, a musician, whatever… what you do in this world, you need to do with commitment and you need to have the good thinking, then you can think very well and you can do your part. And then we’ll give it to another generation and when they come up, they will remember you.”