During the Spiderbait tour, the band played live on the ABC's national television youth program Recovery. A set of dates followed through suburban NSW with Nitocris. The same year NoKTuRNL also played the Pushover Youth Festival in Melbourne and the Manly Youth Festival in Sydney. They made three video clips with national multicultural broadcaster SBS, recorded 'live' for Triple J's Australian Music Show and appeared on ABC tv's Songlines program.

1998
In 1998 their performance at the Stompem Ground Festival in Broome W.A. was featured on a national live ABC television special of the event. They also performed that morning on Recovery, via satellite from Broome. On Federal election day (1998) NoKTuRNL again appeared on Recovery, meeting fellow guests Public Enemy. In the week prior to the election SBS TV aired a controversial interview and clip by the band that had them burning the Australian flag and speaking out about conservative forces like Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party. In 1998 SBS also produced a widely screened half hour television documentary about the group.

In early 1998 NoKTuRNL had travelled to London to record with German/English producer Zeus B. Held (Nina Hagen, Transvision Vamp). One of these songs, Sage, was used in the short film "Saturday night, Sunday morning". Another NoKTuRNL song "Unveiled", recorded in 1997 by JJJ, was used in the critically acclaimed and AFI award winning film "Radiance." Also in 1998 the band performed at the Pacific Circle Music Convention, the Woodford Festival and Mudfest in Nth Queensland. To the disbelief of the band, the year ended with NoKTuRNL proving their street level popularity by winning "Band of the Year" at the 1998 Deadly Sounds Australian Indigenous Music Awards. NoKTuRNL, had won this peoples' choice award over other well established acts, despite having no released recordings, no radio play and only a handful of live gigs under their belt.

1999
In May 1999, not long after signing to Sony/ATV publishing, NoKTuRNL recorded two songs, Neva Mend and No Respect, with Kram and Whit from Spiderbait. In June they also recorded two songs, Machine Gun and New Era, with Chris Thompson from JJJ. Machine Gun was soon being played regularly by JJJ. NoKTuRNL was then booked for the National Big Day Out Tour. This was the first time in the eleven year history of the event that a band had been booked for the national tour without having released any recordings. New Era, was included on the compilation album of the 2000 Big Day Out and this became NoKTuRNL's first commercially released recording.

What followed was a fierce bidding war between several of the major labels. NoKTuRNL signed with Festival Mushroom Records off shoot Sputnik. A three song CD was quickly compiled from existing material. Entitled 'Neva Mend' it also included No Respect and New Era. Top engineer/producer Magoo helped remix 'Neva Mend' and 'No Respect' and it was released hot on the heels of their critically acclaimed performances at the Big Day Out. The Age, Melbourne's daily broadsheet, described NoKTuRNL's performance as "…the most exciting set" of the Melbourne BDO.

Neva Mend received glowing reviews and high rotation on Australia's national youth broadcaster Triple J. The mind blowing video had the storm from the desert setting fire to the city. It immediately became Channel V's "Ripe Clip of the Week". Neva Mend was nominated for two ARIA awards: Best Alternate Release; and Best Video. New Era followed to radio and also received high rotation and remains one of the bands most popular songs.

2000
In April 2000 NoKTuRNL toured nationally with the Rollins Band and appeared live on Channel V's the Joint. In May they began recording their next release with help at times from producers Kram and Magoo. They also travelled to Darwin to headline a concert supporting international condemnation of the Northern Territory's racist mandatory sentencing laws. They then headed off on a 19 date national tour, billed Stylewars 2000, with label mates 28 days and MotorAce. During the tour NoKTuRNL's photo was used as the cover for 3 capital city music magazines. NoKTuRNL took time from this tour to perform at Corroboree 2000, reminding Australians that you can't have reconciliation without respectoration. Their performance was broadcast nationally on TV.

Whilst in Sydney for Stylewars, NoKTuRNL briefly recorded with artist producer Josh Abrahams. During this time the band was also developing their own ability to record, using little more than a sequencer in a hotel room.

After a year of using hired session drummers, new recruit Paul Kelly joined NoKTuRNL and the band headed off in early July to tour regional Victoria with Bodyjar. Whilst in Melbourne they performed a 50 minute set for JJJ's Live at the Wireless program. The blistering set featured the song Haterz, which was later re recorded and released as NoKTuRNL's third single. Flametal, one of the b sides for the Haterz single, was lifted directly from this JJJ live session. NoKTuRNL returned to Alice Springs in late July to play with Midnight Oil to a packed house at the local pub. It was filmed by cable televisions' Channel V and formed the basis of one hour special on the band broadcast in October.

NoKTuRNL's second release 'Unveiled', was released to retail in October 2000. The five song EP, mixed by Magoo, included material from the Magoo and Josh Abrahams sessions, as well as hotel room recordings by the band. In the opinion of critics, the five song EP cemented NoKTuRNL's position as 'Australia's most adventurous rock band' and marked 'their territory as the quintessential Australian 21st century band.' It was generally considered to be the highlight of their career to date. Australia's national youth broadcaster Triple J, enthusiastically embraced it, playing not only the title track, but also 'Just B…' and 'Same Old Song' on high rotation.

In another first, at the Deadly Sounds Indiginous Music Awards in October, NoKTuRNL again won "Band of the Year", the only act to have won the award twice. Lead singer Craig T. had the honour of co hosting the event and NoKTuRNL showed why the fans voted for them, by putting on a typically blistering performance. Other memorable performances in 2000 included the Pacific Circle Music convention, Homebake, and Hemispheres.

2001
August 2001saw the commercial release of another NoKTuRNL song, this time in collaboration with Sydney based act Primary. They jointly wrote and recorded the track 'One by One' for the record Corroboration. This track rapidly became the most radio played of all songs on the compilation. October had JJJ, Australia's national youth broadcaster playing NoKTuRNL's respectful cover of the well known Slim Dusty song, 'A Pub with No Beer.' NoKTuRNL recorded the song to assist JJJ in promoting the annual National Aboriginal and Islander Music Awards - the Deadly's. NoKTuRNL was nominated directly for Single of the Year (Haterz) and Album of the Year (Unveiled) in 2001, as well as sharing the award for Yolngu Boy which featured Neva Mend (Excellence in Film & Theatrical Score) and in the nomination for Corroboration (Album of the Year).

Also in October Ralph (magazine), nominated NoKTuRNL as one of the top 100 Australian and New Zealand bands of all time. An extraordinary ranking for a band yet to release a full length album, or have any sort of commercial radio success. Ralph described their music as "a new musical form combining rap, metal and rock."

• For information about 2002/3, see the bands current biography