Library Records made by "known" Musicians.

Woebot

Well-known member
It occurred to me the other night that the Library records i've been interested in largely are not ones made by complete unknowns but ones made by known musicians.

So for example:

• Guy Warren on KPM (the drummer from Ghana)
• Rogerio Duprat on KPM (the brazilian tropicalia producer)
• Basil Kirchin
• Anne Dudley
• Delia Derbyshire and John Baker together under a pseudonym (anyone?) on KPM
• Bernard Parmegiani
• Armando Sciascia

etc?

Theres an implicit tension between fame and anonymity, "art" and "service" which gives the records a bit of juj. I suppose there is a (maybe cheap) guarantee of "quality" as well. The record is something made by someone with a creative rep, someone whos managed successfully to pimp their vision to a broader public without immediately resorting to the patronage of a company like Chappell etc. Theres an added fascination at hearing what these people do when freed from some commercial constraints, and how they respond to other creative dictats. Fun to to imagine that as the owner of such a record that their work is at your disposal, copyright free!!!

Been quite taken with the unstoppable fascination with library, feel kind of like Canute with regards to it. I shouldnt go into it too much here cos I've just written something for a jazz rag on the subject and i'll get my wrists smacked if i spill to many beans, but isn't the "mode" which digging into/sampling old library records interesting? Its almost as if the creative tactic of exploring the most dead kind of music possible, is a method of producing the most vivacious music.
 
Got well into the library thing for a few years, but I've sort've drifted away from that now. Looking forward to reading your report though, Matt. keep us posted when it hits the streets!

Dunno about a psuedonym for Derbyshire/Baker, all I know is that John recorded some library stuff as John Matthews. the one's I've heard are way more experimental than his usual upbeat tunes. My man Baker had skillz.

For me, the most 'famous' library artist is JJ Perrey with his amazing run of releases for the french Montparnesse label in the '70s. Some of those were under the name Pat Prilly.
 

iueke

Active member
Lasry Baschet (patchwork)
Francois Bayle (MPI)
Ronnie Ross (harmonic)
Maurice Vander (Neuilly - MP200)
John Mayer & Jo Harriot (kpm)
Francy Boland big band (KPM)
magma dudes; Janik Top, Teddy Lasry, ect. all made dozens of library lps.
Tubby Hayes (kpm)
Tod Dockstader (boosey & hawkes)
the moving gelatine plates (RCA)
Roland Kovak (harmonic - selected sound)
Bernard Lubat (telemusic)
John Barry (chappell)
the Pretty Things (dewolfe)
Kalus Weiss (golden ring)
joel Vandroogenbroeck aka Branticket (selected sound + dozens of others)
Johnny Scott (peer)
Titanic (RCA)
Jean Claude Vannier (magellan)
Peter Herbolzheimer (Altaxon)
Can (harmonic)

so many more...
 
Delia Derbyshire recorded under the name 'Russe'
she did an album on Standard and one on KPM called Electrosound, also with
Brian Hodgeson of the Radiophonic workshop (under the name St George)

Could add to the list Mike Ratledge of Soft Machine (synth stuff under the name Rubba on De Wolfe I think)
Brian Bennet (although he was a session guy before he was in The Shadows as well)
I'm sure theres a lot more like this, musicians who float in and out of bands and session work
a lot of the musicians in the english folk scene did Library, though I couldn't list them
I wander whether the attatraction was money or creative freedom.

The attraction of Library could be that it was music produced with commercial imperatives, but had to work on a level of triggering specific emotions., In that respect maybe the musicians/composers involved let go a bit, tap into an automatic way of approaching their art. (rather than getting hung up on the idea of classic albums, charts etc.) also, they didn't know who their audience was, or where their music would end up. Imagine writing music all day that was non specifically about industry or landscape or germs
 

iueke

Active member
a few more:

Madeleine Bell (themes)
Bruno Nicolai (gemelli)
Jean Michel Jarre (fox)
Jean Cohen Solal (patchwork)
Gilbert Artman (RCA)
Pierro Umiliani (soundworkshop - omicron - liuto)
Allesandro Allesandroni (cenacolo)
Ennio Morricone ( too many labels)
Pierre Cavalli (harmonic)
Oskar Sala (selected sound)
Berbard Estardy (telemusic)
Egisto Macchi (SR - gemelli)
Michel Magne (april)
Alain Kremski (MPI)
Les Baxter (KPM - capitol music)
Gato Barbieri (omicron - liuto)
Vladimir Cosma (MPI)
Claude Vasori aka Caravelli (RCA)
Gert Wilden (harmonic)
Nancy Holloway (MPI)
Erik Nordgren (southern)
Chet Baker (liuto)
David Vorhaus (kpm)
 
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MiltonParker

Well-known member
would love to hear the Parmegiani and Bayle library lp's. wow.

have heard the dockstader: dates from 1979. analog synth sequences and textures... odd to hear him play equal temprament keyboard melodies, he's having fun. most of it is too casual to ever be released under his name with the other works, but just the same there are a few clicky tracks that are nicely ahead...

the david vorhaus library lp's are hilariously bad. very useful for parodies of corporate radio spots.
 

sufi

lala
(I have a crystal clear fake memory of "the Delia Derbyshire" thread, but can't find one :eek: anyway
Archive

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delia_Derbyshire#archive said:
After Derbyshire's death, 267 reel-to-reel tapes and a box of a thousand papers were found in her attic. These were entrusted to Mark Ayres of the BBC and in 2007 were given on permanent loan to the University of Manchester. Almost all the tapes were digitised in 2007 by Louis Niebur and David Butler, but none of the music has been published due to copyright complications.[38] In 2010, the University acquired Derbyshire's childhood collection of papers and artefacts from Andi Wolf. This collection is accessible at the John Rylands Library in Manchester.[39]

Can't someone go and zap these onto a device for us? or did anyone already?
 
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