Photo © Sarah Fairclough

Nahum Mantra

Recorded at the London Science Museum, June 28th, 2012.  * Recording arriving soon * Nahum Mantra – Theremin. Nahum Mantra is an artist, composer and multi-instrumentalist. He lives between London and Mexico City and works in the intersection of the…

Gramophone Magazine Feature

Gramophone Magazine Feature

In June 2012, Gramophone Magazine published a feature on the Phonographies live wax cylinder recording sessions that took place at the London Science Museum in May and June. You can view it here and also listen to a recording made…

Jonathan Sterne

Jonathan Sterne

Recorded at the London Science Museum, June 23rd, 2012. Jonathan Sterne reads an extract from from the introduction to his book: MP3: The Meaning of a Format. “At the moment I write this sentence, there are about 10 million people…

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: © A. Kolkowski

Phonographies on Resonance 104.4 FM

The entire first series of eight half-hour programmes devoted to the Phonographies archive will be repeated on Mondays to Fridays from 19th until 28th of December 2011. Many unpublished wax cylinders that are not featured in the archive are also…

© Caroline Forbes

The ElectroAcoustic Ensemble

Photo: © Caroline Forbes Recorded at Bates Mill, Huddersfield, November 18th 2011 Recording Notes This wax cylinder was originally made for Evan Parker’s improvisatory piece Tesserae, devised for the ensemble and directed by him and commissioned by the Huddersfield Contemporary…

© Caroline Forbes

Aleks Kolkowski & Ute Wassermann

Photo © Caroline Forbes Recorded at St. Peter’s Church, Whitstable, U.K, July 15th  2009 Bow Echo –  Improvisation Aleks Kolkowski and Ute Wassermann first came together as an improvising duo in Berlin, 2003. They have since performed in Germany, The…

© A. Kolkowski

Christopher Fox

Recorded in London, July 28th 2011. Urtext Urtext is part of my Catalogue irraisoné, a collection of 12 pieces for solo voice which I wrote between 1999 and 2000. In turn Catalogue irraisoné is part of my ensemble installation Everything…

© Berthold Schneider

Phil Minton

Recorded in Berlin on June 6th 2003  Voice Phil Minton comes from Torquay. He played trumpet and sang with the Mike Westbrook Band in the early 1960s, then in dance and rock bands in Europe for the later of part…

Sabu Toyozumi

Sabu Toyozumi

Recorded at the Vortex Jazz Club, London, 16th August, 2010. Erhu Sabu Toyozumi (b. Yokohama, 1944) is a Japanese free improvising percussionist and multi-instrumentalist. He began his career in the 1960s as a drummer with the legendary Japanese progressive rock…