Lord Howe Island

Australia's coral reefs stretch far and wide, covering 50 000 square kilometres from the Indian Ocean in the West to the Pacific Ocean in the East. They have been viewed as a bedrock of coastal livelihoods, as uncharted and perilous nautical hazards, as valuable natural resources, and as unique, natural wonders with secrets waiting to be unlocked. Australia's coral reefs have sustained a global interest as places to visit, and as objects of study, science, protection and conservation.

In the work of American songwriter Tom Waits, swampy blues, Beat poetry, West Coast jazz, Tin Pan Alley, country, 1930s-era cabaret, and post-Civil War parlor songs meet neon-lit carnival music and the wheezing, clattering, experimental rhythms (often played by makeshift musical instruments from car radios to metal pipes and tin cans, hence his love of Edgard Varese and Harry Partch) form a keenly individual musical universe. It has often been imitated but never replicated.