Sven Libaek Nature Walkabout

Scored for vince & Carol Serventy’s 1966 Australian Television series nature Walkabout, Sven Libaek’s pioneering soundtrack has long been considered the landmark recording of the unique genre, eco-jazz. impressionistic modern jazz composed for Television documentaries, library music, educational and travelogue films).

Creating a singular vision of his adopted homeland, Libaek composed conceptual themes and moods depicting the magnificence, the mystery and the sometimes brutality of the Australian rural environment. Similar to his legendary score for Ron and Valerie Taylor’s TV series Inner Space, Nature Walkabout also stands as an important recording of modern jazz used in film. Featuring many of the top Australian jazz musicians (Don Burrows, John Sangster, Errol Buddle etc) his deeply evocative style of jazz waltz, hypnotic flute/vibraphone rhythms and gorgeous Bossa Nova conceptually represent the grandiose of the Australian landscape as well as the whimsical sound of animal behaviour. Nature Walkabout is similar in approach to other notable nature scores such as Edward William’s Life on Earth, Francois de Roubaix’s psychedelic score to Jean Painlevé’s Transition De Phase Dans Les Cristaux Liquides, and the specifically Australian strand of visionary ‘nature jazz’, John Sangster’s score to the Australian Museum’s wildlife films (Compiled on the 1971 album Australia and All That Jazz) Remastered from the original master tapes and presented as a deluxe 180g Gatefold edition with rare photos from the Serventy archive plus extensive liner notes by jazz writer Francis Gooding.