From the Archives.

Those who follow me on Twitter will perhaps recall that a couple of weeks ago, the British Library got in touch, to ask if I would contribute the D.D. Denham LP to their Archive. The idea of someone possibly stumbling upon 'Electronic Music In The Classroom' in 300 years time and thinking 'what the devil is this?' appeals to me, I have to admit. It's also a great honour to be asked to contribute.

The fact that the British Library Archivists do extremely important work, really can't be overstated. As I was told, they preserve everything from wax cylinders to downloads and have highly-developed methods and techniques of archiving and storage. They have asked for all future Cafe Kaput releases to be part of the Archive and this makes me feel very good indeed about the future of the recorded output of the label. You see, archiving concerns me greatly; not just in terms of my own music, but generally. Archiving, or backing up data of all kinds is such an important issue, yet we don't really pay enough attention to it. There are pitfalls to be avoided, whether we are creating art or consuming it.

Recently, I dug out some multi-track recordings which I made for my first album, back in 2000. They were stored on the then-revolutionary DVD-R and reportedly the best quality available at that time. Some of these DVDs don't actually work any more, which is a bit concerning.

Compare this situation with the time when I transferred and re-mastered an archive of Oliver Postgate material, some of which was released as the Ivor The Engine / Pogles Wood soundtrack, on Trunk Records. I was dealing with open reel tapes, some of which were over 40 years old. Apart from the odd tape which suffered from the infamous Sticky Shed Syndrome (a chemical / manufacturing deficiency which affected some tapes during the early 1970s), the transfers went smoothly. Considering they had been stored in a cardboard box in Olver Postgate's cellar, they sounded very good indeed.

These days, I record all my music masters to 1/4" tape, partly because I like the sound, but also because it's a very reliable format to store music. If treated with some respect, modern tape formulations should last a lifetime.

That's not to say that digital backups can't be trusted or shouldn't be relied upon; they just require a different approach. This is why I like iDevices (pod, pad, phone etc). If you use one of these, any album you buy in mp3 format is automatically backed up. If your iDevice goes kaput, you've always got a backup on your hard drive... and vice versa. When you upgrade your computer or iPod, you take your music with you automatically, so the media is refreshed and data less likely to be lost. It may not be a perfect solution, but still; it's the antithesis of it sitting around on a slowly-decomposing CDR or DVD-R.

The key to keeping your data intact is to keep it moving.

(thanks to James Tugwell from the British Library for making contact).

- Jb.