Definition - 'Ambient Scape'
ambient /ˈæm.bi.ənt/ noun: (especially of environmental conditions) existing in the surrounding area.
scape /skeɪp/ refers to a combined suffix: denoting a particular wide view or specified type of scene.
About the Ambientscape Project
The Ambientscape Project was established in 2022 by Jonathan Emeruwa, the title is a homage to the British musician and composer "Brian Peter George Eno" who coined the term 'Ambient Music' and popularised this experimental genre. It is a Community Interest Company which exists to benefit communities by using its earnings for the public good rather than profiting private shareholders.
The purpose of the project is to preserve, digitise and publish historical phonograph cylinder and disc recordings in order to make them available online to all in digital form outside the traditional institutional archives and libraries, this includes having the recordings easily accessible to creators and artists to give them the option to use the audio in their own creative works, sharing educational information where available for further research. As well as presenting global historical phonograph recordings, Ambientscape is the only independent archive dedicated to providing on-line access to the earliest documented sound and music recordings from Africa and the African diaspora, tracing accurate recording histories back to the advent of sound reproduction.
Sound recordings made prior to 1923 entered the public domain on the 1st January 2022 following the Music Modernization Act ("MMA"), passed by US Congress in 2018, almost the entire wax cylinder collection of the Ambientscape Project was recorded prior to 1923. All historical wax cylinder recordings that will be added to the cylinder archive are from the Ambientscape collection and will officially be in the public domain. The vast majority of the world's music recordings are not available online and certain cylinders in the Ambientscape collection particularly of any featured field recordings will not be available in a larger institutional archive or through the internet and available to access for the very first time on this website.
There are other archives that may have the same phonograph cylinders, however every wax cylinder recording is uniquely different and there are no 2 which are the same given the physical properties of either wax or celluloid and what happens to the material over time. The earliest recordings on beige and brown wax cylinders were etched one by one, where the musicians would record each cylinder separately with a later practice of the mass produced molding process from a master introduced in 1901. The equipment used to playback the recordings is also becoming rare in the hands of institutions, collectors and enthusiasts who are helping to preserve this important history.
Historically African Americans have had a profound impact on sound innovations, heavily influencing early recording technologies from the beginning, of note here is the prolific inventor Granville Woods who in 1885 worked on telegraphony, a system that combined both telephone and telegraph and was later purchased by Alexander Graham Bell's Company, telegraphony allowed users to switch between 2 forms of communication either morse code or voice. Another inventor, Lewis Latimer, would help Alexander Graham Bell secure a patent for the telephone when he drafted drawings for the patent's application, and finally James West in 1962 who would change the face of recording by developing a compact and sensitive microphone through his foil electret methods that would be used in almost all consumer recording devices to this very day.
Thomas Edison was the inventor of the first commercial phonograph and 'Edison Records' would later go on to become the most well known cylinder label most notably with his 'Celluloid Blue Amberol' format, however it was felt that the British and European phonograph cylinder manufacturers/labels were lacking within most collections and there will be some attention given to overseeing the different recordings from manufacturers such as Sterling, Clarion, Electric Records, Edison Bell and Pathé, also remembering the forgotten black and ethnic performers who recorded on these labels. Furthermore we shall also endeavour to include recordings and information about Black African, African American, Asian, Caribbean, Indigenous Peoples of America and Oceania, as well as all Peoples of Colour, giving a more balanced representation of the history of recorded sound and music.
As part of the Ambientscape Project, original ambient music will be available alongside the wax cylinder recordings and composed by Angakut royalty free. Because ambient music can encourage a sense of recollection and contemplation, we believe there is a therapeutic link between the reminiscent wax phonograph recordings of the past eroded by time, and the experiential emotions and memories that ambient music can evoke for memorialised healing.
In addition we will also be broadcasting early world music recordings on the 'Crystal Radio Receiver Station,' this is to emphasise the diverse musical contributions from people of Africa, the African Diaspora and different ethnicities around the world. Encouraging dignity, hope, inspiration, integrity and cultural exchange for all communities especially for those who have been marginalised and excluded.
Further Resources and Other Archives:
* African Stories in Hull and East Yorkshire
* Black Archives Sweden
* Black Cultural Archives - Windrush Road Brixton
* Black Diasporic Archive
* Black German Heritage and Research Association Germany
* Black Sound and the Archive Working Group Yale University
* George Padmore Institute Archive
* Here and Black Website Germany
* Masters of Invention - A Documentary on the History of Black Inventions
* National Theatre Black Plays Archive
* Nottingham Black Archive
* Project Stand - Grassroots Archival Consortia - Community Activism
* [Re]entanglements - Ethnographic Archive
* Redefining Early Recordings
* The Bajakhana Website - Early Indian and Persian Sound Recordings
* The Black Archives (Netherlands)
The Ambientscape Archive complies with IASA Regulation Standards for good practice
Safeguarding of the Audiovisual Heritage, Ethics, Principles & Preservation Strategy, IASA (Document)
A Disclaimer on Dialect Recordings (Read)
Exceptions to Copyright Policy (Read)
Background ethnographic photo part of the 'Ethnographic Wax Cylinders at the British Library National Sound Archive: A Brief History and
Description of the Collection Martin Clayton British Journal of Ethnomusicology Vol. 5 (1996),
Charles Myers recording songs with Ulai and Gasu on Murray Island / Mer, Torres Strait, in 1898. Image from the University of Cambridge
Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology N.23209.ACH2.
