Ayers Rock was an Australian rock band that formed in August of 1973. The founding members were Ray Burton, Mark Kennedy, Duncan McGuire, Jimmy Doyle, and Col Loughnan, but the band had had 16 members total by the end of their career. They were loved by their fans because of the energy and personality they brought to their live performances.

This song is a wild ride for the entire 9 minutes. To give a brief summary, the first 40 seconds is only a low chatter of multiple men’s voices not speaking English. A rhythm picks up from there with a funky, low-toned baseline, along with a steady beat from a drumset with cymbals. This continues for a while, more male voices pop in and sing along (in English!) with the music, similar to what we’re used to with Western-style music. The song takes a toll from typical to treacherous with the flick of some keys (2:00). This seems to open a door for wild and crazy melodies from odd-sounding instruments to erupt with spontaneous contributions. There’s a nice flow then of base and guitar solos/melodies with each other, randomly being interrupted by a screaming saxophone or a muted trumpet. It’s almost as if you can feel how fast the player’s fingers must be running over the keys.

To pick out one small detail to analyze from this very long song, I really wanted to acknowledge the mass explosion of trills two minutes in. Those 10 seconds completely changed the feeling of the entire rest of the song. I really enjoyed this aspect of one of the sounds (the alto saxophone, I believe) making a statement within the song to totally change the vibe of it. It felt as if all of these sounds were having a conversation with one another, and the trilling was the turning point, or climax, in the conversation all of the “voices” were having. And from there, all of the voices were getting angry and starting to yell… There were arguments after the statement that was made. This whole song was simply an entire angry conversation with a really big group of people.

This was so awesome.