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Ray Pereira: Keeping rhythm alive in the West

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By Elwyn Davies

Ray Pereira’s journey through music will be the equivalent of many triple albums. Hiding in plain sight in Melbourne’s west he’s been a significant part of Australia’s music scene for many years.

Ray was 16 when he arrived in Melbourne from Sri Lanka, and after high school began studying surveying at Melbourne University, not a usual course for a musician. He had several friends in a band who he spent time with and he casually joined one of their sessions. They saw that he had ‘something’ so they invited him to join the band and the rest is history.

Ray and his current band The Mouth played a preview of their new album last month at Kindred Studios in Yarraville. By coincidence, many years ago Ray was the first person to play a gig at Kindred which prior to that had exclusively been a studio and practice space. Ray now continues his association with Kindred via the many African drumming classes he runs there. 

The new album, as yet untitled, was performed to a full house and was very well received. The Mouth was co-founded with Julien Wilson on saxophone, and includes Quinn Knight on drums, Robbie Bellchamber on guitar and Ashleigh Howell on bass. The album preview show was supported by the Maribyrnong Council’s ‘Love Your West’ grants program.

Ray is well respected by traditional master drummers around the world for his performing and teaching styles, and has a compelling reputation for supporting young musicians. Over his 30 year career he’s worked with everyone from Yothu Yindi, Paul Kelly and jazz greats such as Vince Jones.

His journey through percussion has been long and rewarding for himself and his audience, and also his students. This journey has taken him through New York, Cuba, West Africa and of course his birth country Sri Lanka. Ray has always maintained that he doesn’t seek to copy the percussionists of these cultures, there is so much in the history and culture that can’t be replicated, but that he has learnt from them and built relationships in return.

Ray pointed out to me that when he’s been invited to join a band the music has mostly already been formulated. He becomes part of adding and embellishing the work. The work of the new album has percussion at its beginning and core. It is something he has strived for and with a wealth of skill, research, and the ability to work with many gifted musicians from Australia and overseas, he has achieved his objective in spades.

As Grace Jones would say, he’s a slave to the rhythm. 

Ray was awarded an OAM in 2021 for his services to the performing arts.

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