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 is a not-for-profit Community Interest Company, Sound Preservation Archive, Digital Library, and Publisher, which exists to conserve, black, indigenous, and world cultural sound heritage, whilst offering access to educational material. The 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.
The purpose of the project is to preserve, digitise, and publish historical phonograph cylinders and discs, in order to make them available on-line to all in digital form, outside the traditional institutional archives and libraries, this includes having the recordings easily accessible to creators and artists, 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 may not be available in a larger institutional archive or through the internet and available to access for the very first time on this website.
So what exactly is an archive? Archives are locations where recorded history can be safely preserved, and an accumulation of historical records that provides information about a place, institution, or groups of people, with the earliest practice of keeping records on clay tablets dating back to at least the 2nd and 3rd Millenia B.C. The first African American archivist was Harold T Pinkett who specialised in records relating to agriculture.
There are other archives that may have the same phonograph cylinders as the Ambientscape Project, 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 moulding process from a master introduced in 1901. The equipment used at present 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.
As part of the Ambientscape Project, original ambient music will be made 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 Music Archive - Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz
* African Stories in Hull and East Yorkshire
* American Indian Archives - Oklahoma Historical Society
* American Institute of Indian Studies - Archives & Research Center
* Archive of Maori and Pacific Sound - University of Auckland
* Archives Africa - National Archives of Madagascar & King's College
* Archivo Audiovisual de Venezuela
* Australian Institute of Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Collection
* Black Archives Sweden
* Black Central European Studies Network
* Black Cultural Archives - Windrush Road Brixton
* Black Diasporic Archive
* Black German Heritage and Research Association Germany
* Black Inventors: Crafting Over 200 Years of Success by Keith Holmes
* Black Sound and the Archive Working Group Yale University
* British Library - African Manuscripts and Archives
* Canna House Archive - In Preservation of Scottish Gaelic Culture
* Digital Library of the Caribbean
* Endangered Languages Archive
* George Padmore Institute Archive
* Here and Black Website Germany
* International Library of African Music (ILAM)
* Irish Traditional Music Archive
* La Mediatheque Caraibe - Guadeloupe Public Library
* Masters of Invention - Documentary on the History of Black Inventions
* National Library of Nigeria
* National Theatre Black Plays Archive
* Native Indian and Alaska Native Records in the National Archives
* Nomad - Archiving Somali Objects
* Nottingham Black Archive
* Project Stand - Grassroots Archival Consortia - Community Activism
* [Re]entanglements - Ethnographic Archive
* Redefining Early Recordings
* The Anti-slavery Harp a Collection of Songs by William W. Brown
* The Arc Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language (CoEDL)
* The Bajakhana Website - Early Indian and Persian Sound Recordings
* The Black Archives (Netherlands)
* The Colored Inventor - A Record of Fifty Years by Henry E. Baker
The Ambientscape Archive complies with IASA Regulation Standards for good practice
Safeguarding of the Audiovisual Heritage, Ethics, Principles & Preservation Strategy, IASA (Read)
Exceptions to Copyright: Libraries, Archives & Museums - Intellectual Property Office (Read)
Moving Toward a Reparative Archive: Inclusive Spaces for Marginalized Voices (Read)
National Recording Preservation Board Reports The Library of Congress (Read)
Royalty Free Ambient Music - Licensing and Terms of Usage (Read)
Exceptions to Copyright Policy: Terms and Conditions (Read)
Public Domain Policy for the Cylinder Archive (Read)
A Disclaimer on Dialect Recordings (Read)
The Licensing Declaration (Read)
10 AI Principles (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.
