Home Of Strange Records
The University of Alberta has this collection of records that’s linked with the Smithsonian Institution, the Folkways collection, and an institute called folkwaysAlive! that houses this record collection.
Folkways was this label from New York City by Moses Asch. It was a very forward-thinking, independent label. Moses wanted to capture sounds that would’ve otherwise been lost because they weren’t commercially viable.
So he invented this new business model and released a ton of field and ethnic recordings, and because of his mandate a lot of really strange records. Examples include sounds of junkyards, one guy who composed a narrative of his whole dog's life by recording his dog and compiling the recordings onto an LP, and a guy who communicates with animals and makes animal music.
By some weird coincidence, Moses’s son Michael became a professor at the University of Alberta for a number of years and Moses became quite fond of Edmonton. And so when he died, they passed on this amazing collection to the University of Alberta, and they started folkwaysAlive! to preserve and promote it.
Through record collecting, I became affectionate with this label because of its strange philosophy and the number of releases it put out.
It was an interesting thing for Edmonton to get because, outside of the Smithsonian Institution, it's the only place where the entire collection, over 2000 LPs, can be accessed.
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Aaron Levin
Aaron Levin is the music director at CJSR 88.5 FM and the owner of Cantor Records, which reissues quality rare vinyl. He also has a master's degree in mathematics from the University of Alberta.
