As The Dead C’s Bruce Russell and musician & graphic designer Luke Wood make clear via the title of their 2024 book: A Record Could Be Your Whole World.
Their argument is specific to the role of the vinyl
long-player in western culture as the late 20th century’s primary gesamtkunstwerk
— a “total” art form comprising sound, image, text, and technology — that
manages to draw into its orbit a seemingly infinite array of local and macro strains,
from fashion to socio-political ideologies to slang. In contrast to the
long-player’s tendency toward inclusion and narrative, the 45 RPM 7” single was
the realm of the teen-targeted “hit” or cul-de-sac, an exemplary site of
“repetition.”
All of this flies out the window when considering the role
of the LP and 7” in Egyptian culture of the 1950s–70s. Egyptian LPs served of
one of three functions: a collection of tracks previously issued as singles; a
long-form composition; or a live recording of a previous single or album-length
track. The latter two offered less “whole worlds” than they did models and monuments.
Egyptian 45s, on the other hand, provided glimpses into
worlds in a way that Western 45s didn’t, exactly. I’m neither
anthropologist nor ethnomusicologist, but there is something unique to me about
the look, feel, sound, and seeming message of Egyptian 45s that I’m trusting
gets across through this exhibition. Displayed by label and era, the narrative teased
here tells the story of the medium’s early push to out-legitimize shellac 78s,
to unite with a nationalist perspective, to emphasize hagiography and icon, and
ultimately to collapse into a semi-democratized zone of multiple coexisting
perspectives.
The exhibition takes its name from the recent Sublime
Frequencies release Born in the City of Tanta, co-compiled by Hisham
Mayet and me, which draws from the Bourini Records label. Operating out of
Benghazi, Libya, from 1968 to 1975, Bourini released dozens of singles by
Egyptian musicians from the Nile Delta and Western Desert, and one known Libyan
artist.
Born in the City of Tanta is also a nod to Mohamed Fawzi, an Egyptian singer and music entrepreneur who studied music in Tanta before launching a career that culminated with his launching Misrphon and founding Egypt’s first vinyl record pressing plant in 1957. Although his partner's shares were soon after bought out by Philips and his own by the Nasser-initiated Sono Cairo, Fawzi’s pioneering vision helped make possible the wave of independent releases that ultimately followed.
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