How does Broken Music sound?

New podcast: MEMORABILIA. COLLECTING SOUNDS WITH... Ed Veenstra. Part II

A musical selection of some of the secret jewels found in Ed Veenstra's record collection, specialised in Broken Music: records and paramusical works produced by visual artists and other avant-garde creators.

Link: http://bit.ly/JkfdCi

MP3: http://bit.ly/JNcQuI

Related info: http://bit.ly/K5aG9q

Music selected by Ed Veenstra. Mix produced by Genís Segarra

In the early sixties Milan Knížák began experimenting with vinyl records by scratching, painting, burning or even breaking them. These fierce treatments affected not only radically the original compositions but also expanded the function of the records themselves. Because it was almost impossible to transfer the distorted sounds to standard sheet music, Knížák considered the records with all their cuts, paint, punched holes, glue and scratches a new form of musical notation. Additionally the records became art objects.

On February 18, 1988, Daadgalerie in Berlin opened its doors for Broken Music. The exhibition, curated by Ursula Block and Michael Glasmeier, featured objects, sleeves, and installations by visual artists with records as main source. Many of the exhibited works featured sound by visual artists. The exhibition catalogue containing theory, a historical overview and an extensive and illustrated discography is still influential and an asset for anyone interested in visual artists working with records as medium and/or sound.

More than twenty years after the exhibition and the never reprinted catalogue the term Broken Music managed to survive as a genre although its definition seems to have narrowed down to just sound by visual artists. This audio-selection is mainly focused on visual artists for whom sound is an extension or component of their visual work. Some of the records you are about to hear were chosen because they are extraordinary rare. Some are here because they are. Ed Veenstra, 2011

This show is a follow-up of the monograph on Ed Veenstra's sound collection. You can find the previous episode here: MEMORABILIA. COLLECTING SOUNDS WITH... Ed Veenstra. Part I http://bit.ly/A7u1SG

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I don't get it.

Some of the music or objects can be seen as a gimmick, but it's still interesting how individuals such as Ed Veenstra and other collectors are obsessed with these objects and what they go through to obtain their object of desire. On the other hand, there's always interesting approaches, related to gramophonia: the experimentation with the means of sound reproduction. Ed Veenstra has a wide collection of these. Furthermore, it's also interesting how these anti-objects or records made by visual artists are valued so differently and distributed in such a different context (galleries, museums, bookshops).