When recorded in 1990 this was the only known recording made of a solo dingo howling in the wild. Powys recorded the dingo sounds early in the morning at Palm Valley in Finke Gorge National Park, Northern Territory, during a winter camping trip. She used a Sony Cassette Walkman and two ‘tie-pin’ microphones at a distance of only a few metres as the curious dingo approached her campsite. Powys is a landscape artist who has been recording nature and studying wildlife since the 1980s. She is a key member of the Australian Wildlife Sound Recording Group.

'Khe Sanh' was the first Cold Chisel single and remains a popular anthem about the Australian experience of the Vietnam War and the lingering after effects on those who served there. It is composed as a series of verses without a chorus, a structure which reflects the restless mood of the lyrics about a man who can’t stop wandering and settle down.

'Khe Sanh' only reached No. 41 on the national charts, its sales potential hindered by a commercial radio ban. The ban was ostensibly because of drug and sexual references, but composer Don Walker suspected it was more to do with a broader unwillingness to come to grips with the aftermath of a failed war.

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Deadly Sounds was a weekly one-hour Indigenous radio program featuring interviews with special guests and music by Indigenous artists. Hosted by journalist, actor and author Rhoda Roberts, it ran for 21 years from 1993. In the first episode, Roberts discussed racism in sport with Nicky Winmar, St Kilda player in the AFL league, and spoke to two Indigenous high school students about their winning entry at the Sydney finals of the Rock Eisteddfod. The Deadly Sounds musical intro, which you can hear in the clip below, emphasises the program’s focus on Indigenous music ('listen to black music, hear the deadly sounds’). To that end, the first episode also introduced the Deadly Sounds National Indigenous Music Chart, which helped give exposure to emerging and established Indigenous musicians. Deadly Sounds was distributed nationally to over 200 stations every week, initially on cassette and later through the Community Radio Network and National Indigenous Radio Service satellites.

'Cattle and Cane' is a signature song by The Go-Betweens, one of the most critically acclaimed Australian bands of the 1980s. It is an autobiographical reminiscence by Grant McLennan (who wrote the song with Robert Forster) of a train trip home to North Queensland as a schoolboy. The song was written and recorded by a homesick McLennan in London and the lyrics mention several natural features of the distant (in space and memory) Australian landscape: cattle, cane, tin, timber and fire (cinders). The music has a dreamy, atmospheric quality that matches the introspective theme of the lyrics. In 2001 the Australasian Performing Rights Association voted 'Cattle and Cane' one of the Top Thirty Australian songs of all time.

Rough Trade RT124

'Boys in Town' was written by Chrissy Amphlett, Mark McEntee and Jeremy Paul. Singer Amphlett and guitarist McEntee were the core of Divinyls throughout the band’s existence from 1980 until 2007. 'Boys in Town' was recorded for the soundtrack of the film Monkey Grip (Ken Cameron, Australia, 1982) and also released as the band’s first single, reaching No. 8 on the national charts. The song has a driving beat and a sexually provocative lyric, sung with unashamed brashness by Amphlett. The desperate quality to her vocal performance matches the longing for change expressed in the lyrics. Amphlett was part of a new surge of compelling women fronting guitar-driven rock/pop bands in Australia around this time.

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ABC war correspondent Chester Wilmot (1911-1954) pioneered the use of recording equipment in the field. He spent several months in Tobruk in 1941 during the siege by German and Italian troops when the Australian soldiers became known as the Rats of Tobruk. He recorded his dispatches on lacquer discs, sometimes with the sounds of gunfire or bombing raids in the background.

In October 1941 the ABC Field Unit recorded a concert put on by 400 Australian soldiers in an ammunition cave. Wilmot’s introduction places you right in the cave alongside the men and the musical performances (including the short song Bless Them All and a wistful saxophone and piano accordion instrumental) reveal the acoustics to be surprisingly good. The highlight is one soldier’s stirring rendition of The Legion of the Lost, with the massed voices of the makeshift military choir bringing the song to a rousing finale.

'Great Southern Land' is one of the most enduring popular songs from the early 1980s about the nature of Australia. The song reflects a blend of Australian geography and culture, with lyrics that cast back across the vast history of the land and its Indigenous inhabitants, to a time long before the arrival of white settlers. The music adds to the sense of place, suggesting the openness and expansiveness of Australia’s desert interior. Songwriter and composer Iva Davies made extensive use of the new generation of polyphonic synthesizers, especially the Prophet 5 and Linn drum machine, in creating the song and the LP, Primitive Man, from which it came. 'Great Southern Land' reached No. 5 on the national charts.

Regular Records RRSP715

The opening of the Columbia Graphophone Company record factory in Homebush, Sydney on 14 October 1926 marks the beginning of the record industry in Australia. The first recording plant in Australasia, it enabled the mass production of shellac 78rpm discs of both imported masters and local recordings by Australian performers. The speech by the Governor of NSW, Sir Dudley de Chair (1864-1958), highlights the significance of the occasion for developing Australian industries. His speech takes place during an official luncheon and the sound of cutlery and other background noise is clearly audible throughout the recording.

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Syria Lamonte (1869-1935) is the earliest known Australian performer to make a commercial recording. Lamonte was born Sarah Cohen in Sydney and arrived in London in 1896. She recorded 21 record ‘sides’ between August and October 1898 at The Gramophone Company in London.

American sound engineer Fred Gaisberg recorded the discs using the new zinc-etched, flat disc technology. This involved cutting a lateral groove into a wax coating on a zinc disc which was then acid-etched to make a deeper groove from which stampers could be made. One of the songs she recorded was They Always Follow Me, from the 1897 musical The Belle of New York.

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Dr Val Stephen's (1919-1998) recordings are the first electronic music compositions by an Australian artist to be released internationally on a commercial record label. Stephen was a Melbourne anaesthetist who first encountered European experimental music in the late 1950s and built his own sound-generating equipment. Despite his self-described ‘amateur’ musician status, his tracks Fireworks and The Orgasmic Opus (both recorded in 1963) appeared on the American Folkways compilation album Electronic Music in 1967.

In Fireworks, Stephen manipulates everyday sounds to create a dazzling display of sonic pyrotechnics as high-pitched electronic noises explode above a persistent background throb.

Dr Val Stephen's (1919-1998) recordings are the first electronic music compositions by an Australian artist to be released internationally on a commercial record label. Stephen was a Melbourne anaesthetist who first encountered European experimental music in the late 1950s and built his own sound-generating equipment. Despite his self-described ‘amateur’ musician status, his tracks Fireworks and The Orgasmic Opus (both recorded in 1963) appeared on the American Folkways compilation album Electronic Music in 1967.

The Orgasmic Opus comically suggests a brief sexual encounter with a series of bleeps overlaying a burbling melody and ending in an explosive climax.