Running Time:

75 min

Release Date:

February 2013

Recording Location:

Tarkine region of Northwest Tasmania:
tracks 1-7. Julius Creek & Savage River,
8. Lindsay River crossing,
9-10. near Arthur River

Time for the Tarkine

** Free Download Album **

The Tarkine region of northwest Tasmania contains the largest expanse of temperate rainforest in the southern hemisphere.

Here, hidden deep in river valleys and wild uplands, huge myrtle trees are festooned with epiphytes and mosses, and in their cool shade thrive an understory of tree ferns. These forests are ancient - they once covered much of Australia, and date as far back as the time of the dinosaurs and the primordial supercontinent of Gondwana.

Our recording begins at daybreak, with birdsong drifting between the trees. Moving deeper into the forest, we pause by a rippling stream, and witness Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos calling as they fly overhead.

But there is much more to the Tarkine region than the rainforests - vast areas of it are actually open heathlands and buttongrass plains. We hear the vibrant song of Cresecent Honeyeaters and Flame Robins drifting over these open landscapes.

Finally we come down the wild coast, where the roaring 40s gust in off the open ocean. At a location known as The Edge of the World, we face west with giant breakers rolling ashore. At this latitude, there is no other landfall westwards until South America's Patagonia - that other fragment of ancient Gondwana.

Andrew & Sarah comment:

"We hope this soundscape, recorded in the diverse habitats of Tasmania's Tarkine, will give you a feeling for this unique wild place.

"Sadly, this region is under imminent threat of mining. There are currently 11 applications for large, open-cut developments pending, which the government seems intent upon passing regardless of any environmental or social consequences.

"Hence we've made this album freely available, so you can hear the wild voices of the Tarkine speak for themselves, and get a sense of what is at stake.

Alternate download page.

For more info:
Tarkine National Coalition

 

Audio sample of this album

1.

Tarkine Dawn - First Light
   (with Pink Robins & Black Currawongs)

6.51

2.

Tarkine Dawn - The Dawn Chorus
   (with Golden Whistler)

11.32

3.

Birdsong of the Great Southern Rainforest

8.32

4.

Streamside in the Depths of the Forest

10.27

5.

Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos on the Wing

6.29

6.

Forest Giants in the Southwest Wind

6.45

7.

Chorus of Green Swamp Frogs

4.32

8.

Sunrise over the Buttongrass Plains

10.35

9.

Coastal Heathlands in the Roaring 40s

4.48

10.

Surf Crashes at The Edge of the World

4.56

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About the audio formats

Mp3:

Mp3 is a universal audio format, playable on iPods, computers, media players and mobile phones.

Mp3 is a compressed format, allowing smaller filesizes, offering faster download times and requiring less storage space on players, but at some expense to the audio quality. Many listeners can't really hear the difference between mp3 and full CD-quality audio, and hence its convenience has lead to it becoming the default option for audio.

Our albums are generally encoded at around 256kbps (sometimes with VBR), balancing optimal audio quality without blowing out filesizes excessively. We encode using the Fraunhoffer algorithm, which preserves more detail in the human audible range than the lame encoder.

Our mp3 files are free of any DRM (digital rights management), so you can transfer them to any of your media technology. You've paid for them, they're yours for your personal use without restriction.

Mp3 files can be burned to disc, either as an mp3 disc, or an audio CD after converting them to a standard audio (.wav or .aif) format first.

FLAC:

FLAC is a high-quality audio format, allowing CD-resolution audio. It is ideal if you wish to burn your files to a CDR, or listen over a high resolution audio system. However files usually require special decoding by the user before playing or burning to disc.

FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) is a LOSSLESS compressed audio format. This means that it preserves the full audio quality of a CD, but optimises the filesize for downloading. Typically, file sizes of around 60% are achieved without any degradation or loss of audio quality from the source files at the CD standard of 16bit/44.1kHz.

Obviously the file sizes are larger than for the mp3 version - usually around 300-400Mb for an album, compared to 100Mb for an mp3 album.

In addition, you'll need to know what to do with the files once you've downloaded them. In most cases you'll want to decode the files to wav or aiff, either to import into programs like iTunes, or burn to CDR. Some programs will play flac files natively.

There is a lot of information about flac online (eg: http://flac.sourceforge.net/)