“Excavated Shellac” (Used 4 times)

Although Preservation Week 2012 is winding down, that's no reason to stop the celebration. Ease into the weekend with this mix which pays tribute to time, the past, and how some things are just too good to let lapse into oblivion.

FMA curator, Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project (CPDP) gives us a taste of vaudevillian debauchery with Sophie Tucker.  Early 20th century Canadian folk fiddler, Isidore Soucy, is a highly jig-able offering from Excavated Shellac, also an FMA curator.

Free-psych-noise-electro-unclassifiable Oakland-based Kreamy 'Lectric Santa ruminates on dystopia.  Oneida's 2006 live performance still resonates powerfully, well into this milennium. 

Self-taught lo-fi multi-instrumentalist hyphenator, Spencer Owen, pleads with the future.  Long-running WFMU show, Antique Phonograph Music Program, shares some vintage avian ventriloquism courtesy of Edward Avis and Howard R. Garis. 

And Wooden Shjips' "For So Long" is an epic, driving collision of mind-altering sparsity that travels the path of its own stylistic origins.

Another Preservation Week goody, this one from FMA curator Excavated Shellac.

Isidore Soucy, a fiddler and composer, was a fixture in traditional Québécois folk music of the early to mid-20th century. 

This track, "which is similar to a square-dance, except without calls" might inevitably be compared to American folk fiddle music, but its relatively smooth and polished style are rooted in European influence, particularly in the piano accompaniment.

Originally recorded in the 1920s, "Quadrille Laurier (6ème Partie)" was released as a 78 and fortunately for us it is now available digitally. 

Sources: Virtual Gramophone  |  The Canadian Encyclopedia  |  Excavated Shellac on the FMA | ExcavatedShellac.com

Excavated Shellac is an incredible resource for rare international 78rpm recordings. With each post, shellac excavator Jonathan Ward takes great care to ensure that the transfer is as clean as possible. His blog posts always go the extra mile in placing the music within a larger cultural and historical context (on the side, JW is a professional writer and researcher).

With the motto "good music is best when it's shared", JW has done just that for upwards of 100 songs that might otherwise go unheard, and we're honored to be hosting the Excavated Shellac archives here on the FMA.

For those who would prefer to hear this music on vinyl, we're in luck! Excavated Shellac has produced its first-ever LP, titled Strings, in collaboration with Dust-to-Digital's Parlorphone imprint. Strings collects fourteen previously unissued performances on various stringed instruments from around the world, including the fiddle, shamisen, charango, Paraguyan harp, Indian vina, Vietnamese moon guitar, Persian violin, and Lebanese oud,. These recordings -- made between 1920 and 1950 -- are all presented with the detailed liner notes we've come to expect from Excavated Shellac.

Anybody with an interest in historical music might already be familiar with the Dust-to-Digital catalog, which includes releases like the Ian Nagoski-curated Black Mirror: Reflections in Global Musics 1915-1955. Here's one of my favorite tracks from that compilation -- a rare performance by the Irish uilleann piper Patrick J. Touhey:

Black Mirror is available here, and you can pick up a copy of Excavated Shellac's Strings LP here. The new LP featured tracks that are not otherwise available -- not even from the Excavated Shellac blog -- but after the jump there's a fantastic mix of other stringed tunes from Jonathan Ward's archives.

One of the greatest little stopovers on this gigantic, expanding planet known as the FMA is the archive for the 78 blog Excavated Shellac. I've sung the praises of this blog many times in the past, here and on the air, but as the end of the year approacheth, I feel compelled to finish 2009 with another huzzah for this wonderful project.