Spirit Records, Broken Records

Join us for a listening session of an audio collage of damaged vinyls records, produced by UK associate artist Harun Morrison.

Spirit Records, Broken Records, is an audio collage of 48 samples from the vinyl record collection of the artist’s parents.

With a total runtime of 23 minutes – the standard length of a vinyl LP record – the samples in the work are from the records he found which had been damaged: featuring scratches, warps, and/or cracks. In our age of streaming, mp3s versions are available of nearly every track in this family collection. What makes these records and their sounds distinctive is their wear-and-tear.

“Like all such collections, built over decades, it seeps stories, speaks of relationships, tastes, attitudes and identities. […] As my parents no longer buy records it has become a time capsule of sorts: the tastes of two first-generation Jamaican migrants, teenagers in London in the 60s. […] the records speak in part of family parties, the focus on their scratches (scars) and distortions speak of the unsaid, or unsayable, secrets and indirect accusations.” – Harun Morrison.

The title of the work takes its name from Spirit Records, a now defunct Jamaican record label, which distributed the reggae track that appears in the final minute of this audio collage: Man in My Pyjama (1975), written and produced by Rupert Martin.

Please register to join the artist at one of two collective listening sessions taking place on Monday 13 December 2021.

Timings

The doors for each session will open on the hour. Guests are asked to get seated quickly, ready to begin the listening at five minutes past the hour. There will be no late entrance to the listening.

COVID-19

Due to the ongoing pandemic we request all guests take a lateral flow test before attending and we require face masks to be worn throughout the event.

Collecting as Practice

This event is part of the public programme of Delfina Foundation’s Collecting as Practice autumn season 2021.

With UK associate Harun Morrison