Guides

The story of how a legendary rock record came to life in rented rooms above a car park, with traffic noise bleeding through the walls, has become one of…

Drum kits have always been rock's engine room, but for a stretch in the late twentieth century, the roar of the double bass drum cut through the mix like a…

Rock has always raided the toolbox for new sounds. Distorted guitars, screaming vocals, pounding drums — and yes, the humble car horn. From the garage bands of…

Picture a stretch of sand at Byron Bay, the sun dropping behind the lighthouse, an esky loaded with cold ones, and a pile of driftwood crackling into flame.…

Mallee Signal’s latest album, Weather Station, sounds like it was recorded between a suburban rehearsal room and the edge of the bush. The Naarm-based quartet…

Few effects have altered rock as radically as the fuzz pedal. By flattening a clean guitar signal into a thick, spluttering wall of harmonics, fuzz turned a…

The marriage of rock music and untamed landscapes has produced some of the most visually arresting moments in popular culture. When a band heads off-grid with…

Three years ago, a four-piece rock outfit from Melbourne was hauling amps between Sydney and regional Victoria, wondering why their demos never captured the…

Rock music and protected wilderness have a tangled, sometimes combative, sometimes beautiful relationship. For decades, organisers have coaxed amplifiers into…

Strip away the amplifiers, pedalboards and studio polish, and the acoustic guitar still commands attention. Its wooden body, ringing strings and human-scale…