Wednesday, March 17, 2010

CD of Wax Cylinder Recordings Being Released

Here's an interesting tidbit to my email box - and yes, they did listen to music that way many, many years ago.  Read on:

For Immediate Release-
How Lo-Fi Can You Go? Aaron Keim Releases CD of Wax Cylinder Recordings

Aaron Keim, multi-instrumentalist and founding member of Boulder Acoustic Society, is known for his old timey music taste and indie approach to the music business. At last year's Folk Alliance Conference in Memphis, he met Martin Fisher who is a sound archivist and recording technician. Martin was recording musicians at the conference on a turn of the century wax cylinder recorder. Aaron got out his guitar and ukulele, sat down in front of the recording horn and turned out 5 tracks.

Invented by Thomas Edison in 1877, the wax cylinder phonograph was the first commercial recording and playback device and was popular into the 1910's when disc shaped records forced them out of business. If you think a 78rpm record sounds old and scratchy, wait till you hear the lo-fi glory of wax cylinder recordings. To make these non-electrical recordings, the musician sings into a large horn, which guides a needle as it digs into the wax cylinder. Aaron transferred his wax recordings to CD and is releasing them as The Quiet American.

For this EP Aaron recorded three original indie-folk songs and two traditional songs. This includes help from Boulder Acoustic Society on Ruben's Train. You can see them recording in front of the wax recording machine at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOlH6YZZfjM . Also, included on the CD is a digital version of the song The Light The Dust, which was recorded at the same time as the wax version.

To celebrate this release, Aaron is squeezing two shows around Boulder Acoustic Society's busy schedule. Oskar Blues in Lyons on May 2nd and the Mercury Cafe in Denver on April 30th.

To hear a sample, check out www.myspace.com/aaronckeim and click on "Rove Riley Rove."
To Purchase, go to http://www.etsy.com/shop/LazarusBooks

For more info:
Aaron Keim
720 254 6725
aaronckeim@gmail.com

1 comment:

B. said...

They Might Be Giants did a recording at the Edison museum on a wax cylinder on their Factory Showroom album - "I Can Hear You." http://s0.ilike.com/play#They+Might+Be+Giants:I+Can+Hear+You:36244:m1487