MEMORABILIA. COLLECTING SOUNDS WITH…
Jonny Trunk. Part I
Produced by Matias Rossi
Creator of a collection of some eight thousand records, Jonny Trunk admits that he has never ceased to follow a maxim that his parents instilled in him at a very young age: ‘If you buy something new, you lose money.’ Nonetheless, it isn’t the figures that make his record collection exceptional and worth sharing, but the two thousand records of archival or library music that it includes.
It isn’t easy to sum up the concept of library music or to explain what it is and what it’s like. Library music, ‘sonorizzazioni’ (another of the terms used in this fascinating musical underworld), or archival music, refers to sound recordings produced for professional use in the context of film, television and radio. It is a prolific industry that, according to its scholars, achieved its greatest splendour from the sixties to the mid-eighties, and is governed by series of aesthetic, production, marketing and distribution rules that lie outside of the established channels.
It is utilitarian music, created for commercial purposes, in which, paradoxically, musicians and composers take on a professional role and find themselves forced to resolve highly abstract matters and situations, such as developing a narrative that is subordinate to images (in soundtracks) or coming up with an entire imaginary without any pre-existing references. Library music is also a poorly documented genre, full of oddities and bristling with strange experiments.
Conversation with Anki Toner on his sound collection
This is a conversation by email with the Spanish Gramophonic collector Anki Toner, which took place in Summer 2012.
Ed Veenstra. Teaser
This music selection was used as a teaser for the MEMORABILIA. Collecting sounds with... Ed Veenstra lecture, which took plave on April 15th, 2011 at the MACBA, and features some of the highlights of Ed Veenstra’s collection.
Deleted scenes
We dig up some unreleased fragments of the interview with sound collector Jonny Trunk that we were unable to include the first time around.
Vietata la vendita. Sonorizzazioni e commenti sonori: library music made in Italy
This mix is a comprehensive introduction and a tribute to the legacy of Italian library music.
Conversation with Jonny Trunk on his sound collection
This is a conversation by email with record and sound collector Jonny Trunk, which took place on April-May 2012, to prepare a monograph on his sound collection.
Jonny Trunk. Part II
Jonny Trunk picks his fifteen favourite tracks from the fifteen best library music companies in his collection.
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.
Jonny Trunk. Teaser
Ed Veenstra. Part I
Dutch collector Ed Veenstra is one of the world’s leading authorities on the genre of Broken Music: records and paramusical works produced by visual artists and other avant-garde creators.