*From the Ràdio Web MACBA vault:Memorabilia. Collecting sounds with...*
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https://rwm.macba.cat/en/buscador/radio/serie/memorabilia-9467>
The podcast series *Memorabilia. Collecting sounds with...* is a
compilation of conversations on sound collecting in the form of monographic
episodes that shed light on the passionate, under-the-radar work of amateur
collectors. At the same time, it reconstructs multiple parallel histories,
from the evolution of playback formats to the problems of the archive, by
way of the collecting market and the development of musical styles outside
of commercial circuits. Each episode is accompanied by a bonus, an
exclusive music selection by the guest collector. To start listening, here
is a small selection:
*1/ Broken Music and anti-records, rarities by definition*
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https://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/memorabilia-collecting-sounds-ed-veenstra-part-i>
Dutch collector Ed Veenstra collects all kinds of musical objects created
by visual artists who have worked with sound at some point in their
careers. This curious artistic typology is known in specialist circles
as *Broken
Music*, after a 1988 exhibition of the same name. Veenstra also collects
what he calls *anti-records*: strange, impossible, and unclassifiable
objects with a radically different approach to the record-as-object, which
transcend the traditional uses of the recording format.
Conversation >
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https://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/memorabilia-collecting-sounds-ed-veenstra-part-i>
Music selection >
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https://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/memorabilia-collecting-sounds-ed-veenstra-part-ii>
*2/ A perpetual search for sound anomalies*
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https://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/memorabilia-collecting-sounds-mark-gergis-part-i>
Mark Gergis is an Iraqi-American who spent much of his time immersing
himself in traditional and folk music scenes and subgenres from Syria,
Iraq, Sumatra, Cambodia, Thailand, and elsewhere, in order to rescue what
he calls *sound anomalies* from oblivion: records, songs, artists, and
recordings whose singularity makes them stand out from the mass. To Gergis,
collecting is not about indiscriminate accumulation or an attempt to
reconstruct a particular country or region’s musical history with an
archivist’s rigour. Instead, his approach is based on immersion and
listening to context.
Conversation >
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https://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/memorabilia-collecting-sounds-mark-gergis-part-i>
Music selection >
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https://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/memorabilia-collecting-sounds-mark-gergis-part-ii>
*3/ Sound archaeology: bridging generations with pedagogical work*
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https://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/memorabilia-collecting-sounds-kees-tazelaar-part-i>
Although musician and historian Kees Tazelaar has been the head of one of
Europe’s most significant electroacoustic music archives for years, he
shies away from being called a collector. He is more interested in
dissemination than exclusivity, and his motivation is archaeological rather
than based on the desire for completion. The archive at the Institute of
Sonology in the Hague is an interesting reflection of the burst of activity
and experimentation that took place mid-century—not just in the Netherlands
but also in many other studios around the world, under the auspices of
universities and private laboratories (Bell, IBM, Philips)—in that
fascinating period of transition when industrial acoustics research mingled
with the early milestones of electronic music.
Conversation >
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https://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/memorabilia-collecting-sounds-kees-tazelaar-part-i>
Music selection >
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https://rwm.macba.cat/en/research/memorabilia-collecting-sounds-kees-tazelaar-part-ii>
*More conversations on sound collecting*
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https://rwm.macba.cat/en/buscador/radio/serie/memorabilia-9467>
Discover > <
https://rwm.macba.cat/en/buscador/radio/serie/memorabilia-9467>