Running Time:
64 min
Release Date:
July 1999
Recording Location:
Uluru & Katatjuta National Park (Ayers Rock, The Olgas)
Uluru - Australia's Red Centre
As dawn illuminates Uluru, the desert sandhills come alive with birdsong. Fairy wrens, finches, honeyeaters, chats, babblers and tiny diamond doves sing from among the scrub and spinifex grass-covered dunes.
As the morning progresses, cicadas can be heard in the canopies of ironwoods, and the outback winds sigh through the desert oaks.
In late afternoon, as the rock itself begins to glow red with the fading light, fairy martins trill as they fly into their nest caves, and water is heard trickling into secluded Mutijulu waterhole. With nightfall, we hear the gentle sounds of a desert evening.
This recording evokes the natural wonders of Uluru, Kata Tjuta and the central Australian deserts known as 'The Red Heart'.
Andrew comments:
"To see the huge bulk of Uluru on the desert horizon for the first time is awe inspiring. To be in the sheltered groves of ironwoods at its massive sandstone base, is equally memorable, especially as the late afternoon sun lights up the rockface a vivid red.
It is easy to understand why both Uluru and nearby Kata Tjuta are places of such spiritual significance for the aboriginal Pitjantjatjara people. Having gained their permission to do our recording, we spent nearly two weeks both at Uluru itself and in the surrounding desert country.
This album is a sonic portrait of the area. What I love about this album, is that it features not only the bird and wildlife that abounds, but the actual sounds of the landscape; wind roaring against rock faces, vast canyon echoes and the rippling of water into secluded waterholes.
To be able to capture that with our microphones gives this recording an added dimension; that of the vastness of the central Australian landscape."
Audio sample of this album
Alternate audio link 
|
1. |
Dawn Across Uluru |
11:10 |
|
2. |
The Liru Walk |
8:38 |
|
3. |
Mala Morning |
4:36 |
|
4. |
Wind Sighing Through Desert Oaks |
11:21 |
|
5. |
Mutijulu Waterhole |
3:24 |
|
6. |
Fairy Martins at Ikari Cave |
5:14 |
|
7. |
Kantju Afternoon |
4:46 |
|
8. |
Valley of the Winds |
4:47 |
|
9. |
Mutijulu Frogs |
4:46 |
|
10. |
Desert Twilight |
5:02 |
The nature sounds of Uluru and the Australian desert
The average time that visitors stay at Uluru (Ayres Rock) National Park is only one and a half days. Which is not only surprising, but very sad, as Uluru is far more than just a picture postcard to be...
Read more >Customer reviews of this album
I'm sitting in my kitchen in Reading, Berkshire, England looking out at a very rainy grey winter's day & listening to lovely Uluru sounds while I work on the computer. Thank you for your lovely CDs. They help us work happier.
Michelle, UK
I've been to Uluru and Kakadu - I must say the photos are beautiful - you have done such an excellent job of packaging your product. The sounds are just such a pleasure to listen to.
Rob, USA
Breathe deeply, put headphones on, and see what part of your brain and body respond to the frequencies!
Susan H, via Facebook
View image gallery to accompany this album
Purchase this
album as:
Digital Album
(for immediate download)
Download this album
for as little as
$7.50 -
View Special Deals
CD
+
Free mp3 format
(Prices AU$, exGST)
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/)