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Deadly Sounds, Deadly Places: Contemporary Aboriginal Music in Australia PETER DUNBAR-HALL AND CHRIS GIBSON University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2004 296 pp.
Peter Dunbar-Hall and Chris Gibson's Deadly Sounds, Deadly Places: Contemporary Aboriginal Music in Australia provides a much-needed update to the literature relating to the contemporary music performance practices of Aboriginal artists. Previously there had only been three full-scale books relating to this topic: Breen edited Our Place Our Music, a collection of conversations between Indigenous and nonIndigenous Australians about Aboriginal music; Neuenfeldt edited The Didjeridu: From Arnhem Land to Internet, which focused on the one instrument; and Walker provided a biographical study of Aboriginal country musicians. Dunbar-Hall and Gibson's text fills an important gap in the literature by providing a refreshing social and political critique of a broad range of musical styles, Aboriginal performers and contemporary issues. While the text is not meant for the expert on contemporary Aboriginal music, it offers a comprehensive introduction to the diversity of contemporary music created by Aboriginal musicians in Australia.
Taking its title from the Aboriginal English term "deadly", meaning "fantastic, great, terrific," the book draws on some of Dunbar-Hall and Gibson's previously published work (both together and separately) and on new research. Chapters 1 and 2 provide a general...