vinyl drag

Vinyl Drag is an experiment. An experiment that takes place on an unsuspecting slab of 12” vinyl.

We all know that vinyl records are vulnerable, and need to be treated with respect. Keeping to this rule I’ve always been mindful of the way that I handle all records that I come across. Now it’s time to see what happens when I don’t follow the rules. Below you will find recordings that serve as a document of degradation. Every week (or so) since October I have been using this page to post an audio recording of a 12" record that has been intentionally abused.

As with all blogs the posts work backwards with the most recent post at the top and the original track at the bottom. Click to hear the original track.
Alternatively, you can click here to be presented with just the audio posts.

Mar 26
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Presentation

Today was the day I had to present the progress of my piece to both the Sonic Artists and the Fine Artists at Middlesex.

//This is pretty much copied from my presentation notes so I apologize for any repetition.//

I started by showing the György Ligeti video that I watched which gave me the original idea for the piece (which can be seen here). I mentioned that the thing with analog media such as video tape, cassettes and vinyl is that over time, and with wear and tear, small transformations start to happen that are not in the original creators control.

These little dips in pitch, the spots that appear over the image and other fluctuations that materialize are what interests me greatly as they are absolutely unique to every single video.

It was then when I read about sound artist Christian Marclay that I started to think about this process a lot more. One of Marclay’s projects in particular fascinated me and that was his 1985 piece Record Without a Cover which is a piece of 12” vinyl with the instructions “Do not store in a protective package” embossed onto the surface. A record left out of its protective packaging will inevitably accumulate all sorts of dust particles, it will become vulnerable to sunlight and also sharp objects will damage its surface. All these and more will help to create a new recordings through modification that is absolutely unique to each pressing.

So with these two concepts in mind I got to work on conceiving my work for the year Vinyl Drag.

Vinyl Drag is a documentation experiment that is taking place on a slab of 12” vinyl that I had pressed. The idea is to document the process of degredation that takes place on this specific piece of vinyl over the year school starting in October.

I mentioned that the project was alive online in blog form and gave the URL.

I then played the original recording, made before any degradation had taken place and finished by playing the class a unique live performance of Vinyl Drag.