Speechification

I don't usually go for documentaries about Australian indigenous communities on ABC Radio National. It's not that I think such matters are unimportant. Quite the opposite. It's just that there's a certain ... well, hand-wringing to much of the ABC material in question. This, however, is very different. It's a great doco from a few years back concerning Arnhem Land- up there - and its people in the context of Colin Simpson's original ground-breaking radio broadcasts from there in 1948. But it's also about radio journalism, documentary-making - particularly as regards the recording of indigenous culture, and the issues in repatriating media - and some lovely glorious sound itself.

ABC Radio National: Return to Arnhem Land [mp3]

A wonderfully atmospheric doco on the lamed vav tzaddikim, the 36 beings who keep the world turning according to Jewish tradition. There's a lovely associated photo gallery here, featuring photos by Todd Weinstein, and nice sound work from sound engineer Russell Stapleton.

ABC Radio National: Radio Eye: Double Life [mp3]

You wouldn't expect much direct connection between South Australia and Finland perhaps, save the odd bit of migration. Yet this edition of Hindsight tells tall tales of the tall ships that sailed between the top and bottom of the world (or vice versa, depending on your point of view.) The 'windjammers' carried grain from Cape Victoria up to the Aland Islands and to keep the journey economically viable, they raced via Cape Horn, perhaps the most dangerous waterway in the world.

Running as late as 1949, when steam ships finally took over, the tall sailing ships were manned by young Australians often with little or no experience of sailing at all, never mind racing up and down such a precarious route. So lash yourself to the mast and hold tight for memories of majestic ships heaving through giant waves in freezing seas, and some pig blood pancakes.

Hindsight: The Cape Horners (mp3)

A war-time story of the 1942 campaign for the Kokoda Track, (relatively) well-known in Australia as the battle that turned back the Japanese advance south in World War II. The large and well-equipped Japanese army had got within 40 miles of Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea and then part of Australia. With air raids on Darwin in Australia's north and a cheeky if ill-fated intervention by two Japanese subs right into the heart of Sydney's harbour, Australia was riven with fear of invasion from the north (Watch out for Baz Luhrmann's forthcoming epic Australia, set at this point).

This fine, straight-ahead historical documentary tells the story of the herculean efforts by Australian soldiers in lugging artillery by hand up the near-vertical sides of the Ioribaiwa ridge, in conditions that were described at the time as the most inhospitable on Earth. A famous victory, told here with many first-hand accounts from the soldiers involved - who are a predictably characterful bunch. But it's a victory that was barely marked at all at the time, with a shameful lack of recognition from the US commander-in-chief, General Macarthur, and Australian counterpart, General Blarney, who in a now-infamous incident, accused his troops of being "running rabbits" in a formal address on the parade ground. Thankfully this story redresses the balance.

What's also interesting to my ears, other than the epic story, is how the sound design for the reportage has changed over 60 years. The music, and tone and pace of the presentation, accompanying those original war-time reports is predictably jaunty, a fully Western orchestral war-time pomp, laden with a sense derring-do and nationalistic fervour - not that far removed from the sound of shows like Dick Barton. Now, the ABC reporter's voice is perhaps appropriately quieter, considered and reflective, and the accompanying music is more of an atmospheric ambient backdrop of sombre washes and percussion-driven pulses, inflected with a kind of ethnomusicology-meets-Café-del-Mar sense of the surrounding tropical environment, perhaps - not 'Western' at all, in its symbolism, and certainly devoid of pomp.

Equally, it should be noted there is no representation of a Japanese presence here - and thus not part of contemporary attempts to present balanced views of these campaigns and experiences - but this is still a gripping story, well-told.

Hindsight: The Guns of Ioribaiwa (mp3)