Welcome to Phonographies

Welcome to Phonographies

Phonographies is an audio archive of contemporary wax cylinder recordings, recorded and curated by Aleks Kolkowski and featuring a wide range of musicians, improvisers, composers, writers and artists. The sounds and music heard on this site are digital transfers taken…

Photo © Caroline Forbes

Ute Wassermann

Recorded July 15th 2009 at St. Peter’s Church, Whitstable. Voice In 2009 I had the chance (thanks to Evan Parker) to spend a day recording duos (voice & birdcall whistles / strohviola & musical saw) with Aleks Kolkowski in St….

Photo © A. Kolkowski

Tetsuo Kogawa

Photo © A. Kolkowski Recorded at Wilton’s Music Hall, London, on November 4th, 2010. FM Micro-Radio Transmitter, Tesla Coils Tetsuo Kogawa’s interests range over a variety of disciplines and critical approaches. After studying philosophy at Sophia and Waseda universities, he…

Photo © A. Kolkowski

Spanish Language Cylinder

Photo © A. Kolkowski Entremeses (hors d’oeuvre) From a collection of early home- recordings with readings from foreign language-learning course books. The record has been made by a native speaker and it’s my guess that this one-of-a-kind cylinder was made…

Photo © A. Kolkowski

Richard Crow

Photo © A. Kolkowski Recorded on October 21st 2010 in London. Our Father (Bum Cheese), 1964, 2010 The piece “Our Father” could and should be subtitled Bum Cheese, which are the two words that I inserted into the prayer on…

Rexine

Rexine

Recorded 30th June, 2010. Paper Dolls Rexine are: cathy – bass emma – vocals + guitar graeme – drums shona – guitar Rexine are based in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, U.K. The promoters of a recent gig described them as: “Three girls and…

Photo © Metod Blejec

Phill Niblock

Photo © Metod Blejec Recorded in London on 17th February 2011. Sethwork (extract) American minimalist composer Phill Niblock has been active in his multimedia endeavors since the mid-’60s. His shows usually incorporate film footage (generally are long takes of non-Western people…

Photo © Caroline Forbes

Peter Evans

Photo © Caroline Forbes Recorded on 7th August, 2010 at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal. Piccolo Trumpet Solo Peter Evans is an American trumpet player based in New York, who specializes in improvisation and avant-garde music. Evans has been…

Photo © Aleks Kolkowski

Michael Esposito & Aleks Kolkowski

Photo © Aleks Kolkowski Recorded on 21st March 2011, in London. Voices from a Spirit Trumpet Michael Esposito was born in Gary, Indiana in 1964. He is a descendant of Alfred Vail who invented the Morse Code and several early…

Lydia Kavina

Lydia Kavina

Recorded on June 30th 2009 in  Abingdon, Oxfordshire, U.K. Theremin Solo Lydia Kavina is currently one of the leading performing musicians on the theremin. Born in Moscow, Lydia began studying the theremin at the age of 9 under the direction…