Black Vinyl
From the 'Sounds of North American Frogs' to 'Speech After the Removal of the Larynx' , Folkways documented the audible nooks and crannies of existence on hundreds of LPs produced by field recordists, scientists, and experimentalists probing the margins of the human soundscape.
Seventy- five years later, electronic music duo Matmos have diced, looped, stretched, and recontextualized these recordings on their new album 'Return to Archive' , which was assembled entirely from the so-called non-musical sounds released on Folkways.
On just the album's first track, dolphins, beetles, telephones, humans stretching the limits of their vocal cords, a shortwave radio, and metal balers co-mingle in a fantasia of sound both every day and extraordinary. Each track on Return to Archive morphs its source material into something completely unexpected, honouring and expanding on Folkways' legacy of sonic exploration. Featuring Evicshen and Aaron Dilloway.