Victrola Favorites: Artifacts from Bygone Days

Various Artists (Artist)

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 22, 2008)
• Original Release Date: December 2007
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: Dust To Digital
• ASIN: B00127ITF8
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #47,540 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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Track Listings

Disc: 1

1. Bololo O Kolilo (Groupo de Totoko Francois)

2. The Crow Flies Back to the Forest (Guangzhou Cantonese Opera Troupe)

3. Mes Tis Polis Ta Stena (Stella Haskil)

4. Balada Do Encantamento (Dr. Edmundo Bettencourt)

5. Shenai (Bismillah Khan and Party)

6. The Basement Blues (Noble Sissle and His Orchestra)

7. Step It Up and Go (Blind Boy Fuller)

8. Shin Shin Tankoubushi (Yukie Kubo)

9. O! Molly Dear Go Ask Your Mother (Kelly Harrell)

10. Big Idiot Buys a Pig (He Zemin / Huang Peiying)

See all 22 tracks on this disc

Disc: 2

1. Impressions of London (Stanley Roper)

2. The Crucifixion of Christ (Jessie May Hill)

3. Torre de Belem (Carlos Ramos)

4. The Farmer's Dream (Frank Ferera)

5. Shiokumi Kasatsukashi (Kachikuri Mimasuya)

6. Mahawin Maita Zad (Po Sein / Maung Sein Maita)

7. Shan Village (St. Gun Khin May)

8. Mahour Gazel-Adjir idin beni (Haffouz Jachar Bey)

9. Little Mo-hee (The Hall Brothers)

10. Two Liquorice Drops in Jail (Cook and Flemming)

See all 26 tracks on this disc

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Recordings made between the 1920s-'50s compiled by Rob Millis and Jeffrey Taylor of the Seattle-based experimental band Climax Golden Twins from their collections of rare 78rpm records and design ephemera. Deluxe 144-page clothbound, full-color book with two CDs featuring Burmese guitars, Chinese opera, Persian folk songs, fado, hillbilly, jazz, blues and much, much more. Climax Golden Twins have designed gallery and museum installations, composed soundtracks (most notably the film Session Nine), worked on documentary films (Phi Ta Khon: Ghosts Of Isan released on Sublime Frequencies) and contributed soundscapes to NPR radio programs in addition to releasing numerous recordings on CD and LP, including a recent LP on the Sun City Girls' Abduction Records imprint entitled 5 Cents A Piece. Influenced by the Secret Museum of Mankind, Yazoo releases, Harry Smith's Anthology Of American Folk Music, as well as record labels like Sublime Frequencies, Ethnic Folkways and Ocora. Also inspired by art and design books such as those published by Chronicle. Sounds like vintage music from around the globe. Looks like a clothbound book printed on extremely fine museum quality wood-free paper and is meant as a visual manifestation of the sounds contained on the CDs. Hundreds of beautiful images of sleeves, photos, labels, needle tins and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a gem, March 8, 2008

By	D. Kiley (CA, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

by the description and reviews on this page it seems like it is a great buy but there was no way i was going to shell out $45 w/o hearing what was on it. so i googled it and found a site where you can preview each song. i was sold. i just got it and its perfect. you get what you pay for with this. a very sweet red book with cds and artwork inside. i think its wonderful and it would make a wonderful present to surprise somebody with (IF they appreciate this kind of vintage variety). listening to it now, i feel like im in a ship going around the world, its really nice.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A perfect Valentine, February 13, 2008

By	Robert C. Ross (New Jersey) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

My Valentine knows that my taste in most things is eclectic. Dust-to-Digital label has compiled several anthologies of early to mid-20th century music from around the world. The two-CD "Victrola Favorites" is a worthy addition to their prior offerings.

The 48 songs are geographically and stylistically diverse. Chanting from Chinese Buddhist nuns, West Indian jazz-calypso, early American jazz, folk and blues, a Thai costume drama, Japanese bamboo xylophones, and an "actual recording of Big Ben and traffic noises" are a few of the offerings.

The liner "notes" are contained in a cloth bound, full-color book of record label artwork, archival photographs, listening instructions, postcards, and other music ephemera. (I write "notes" because the images are the stars of this show; the text is relatively skimpy.)

If you like world music and ethnic sounds, this is a wonderful journey.

Robert C. Ross 2008

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Small Taste of an Interesting Universe, January 19, 2009

By	Tome Raider (California, United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

I went into this with high hopes, although I guess I did know upfront that there was not enough material here to make this worth the price. Indeed, what is here is good, but painfully limited, and the elaborate presentation does not effectively facilitate a comprehensive journey through the songs.

There are vast archives of Victrola stuff; I know this because my grandparents had a Victrola player and I recall each thick platter to present a new odyssey. The technology may have been primitive back then, but the material encapsulated in those discs was astonishing. The sampling here is pretty good, but I think we needed something like eight or twelve discs. Since the material is out of copyright, the additional cost would have been negligible, or so I presume. (Proper Records of the UK does amazing box sets from the same era for about $20.)

The book here is handsome and well made. But the pictures are not identified in a convenient way to correspond with the songs. All the identifying information is in the back. I presume the photos are from the albums actually used in the set. I would have arranged them in the same sequence as the songs, with the song name superimposed over the picture in the lower corner. Instead, you have to go through a cross-referencing effort to know exactly what you're looking at, and what the song is and where and when it originated. Finally, the discs fit into the cover, but there is this rubber-like material that holds the disc and it is extremely hard to get the disc to hold, and then likewise hard to get it out again.

The folks who produced this obviously engaged in a labor of love, and to them I extend my compliments and my thanks for their efforts. But I encourage them, and anyone else producing the media products I buy, to remember functionality should be a paramount concern in packaging: ease of access to the discs; efficient storage volume; excellent documentation; great value; great material. Here we get a limited sampling of great material, but not much beyond that. In short, they lost sight of the principle of function preceding form.