Bands and musicians who released material on the label included the Green Pajamas, Patrick Porter, Abunai!, the Azusa Plane, Black Sun Ensemble, Sharron Kraus and Primordial Undermind.
Born in England in 1958 but raised in Australia, Tony Dale was a passionate fan of music from an early age; in a 2003 interview for web publication Perfect Sound Forever he mentioned that 'for a kid in the late 60s/early 70s the radio was pretty good.
'[2] An interest in music continued into later years, with Dale identifying the popularization of the Internet as being key in involving himself first in online discussions and then as a regular writer and journalist for the English-based fanzine Ptolemaic Terrascope.
Dale's writing and on-line discussion led to a variety of contacts which gave him the opportunity to launch Camera Obscura in 1996 in Melbourne, Australia, beginning with the debut album by American acid folk band Stone Breath, Songs of Moonlight and Rain.
And Xpressway Records – that sort of cottage industry approach unfettered by the need for large budgets or anything other than the sheer joy of getting something I thought to be cool out there.