Chance Meeting
Friday October 28th, 2022 with Heavy Ben
October is "Library Month" and CKCU's Funding Drive begins

Chance meeting on a circulating library of science and lemonade Please help us keep non-commercial radio broadcasting. https://cod.ckcufm.com/pledge/ "Library" means something different to me. Use your imagination and dream up your own personal film to these library soundtracks. It’s hard to sum up the “library record.” Musically speaking, these dusty sought-after gems occupy a broad spectrum of styles. From a beat-digger haven of obscure and heavy funk, experimental and aspirational avant grade electronics, surreal sci-fi synth-scapes and, of course, sensual soundtracks that would backdrop a particular category of explicit filmography, library records covered all the music bases. Originally they were mass-produced to provide a source of purely economic music, conceived in the 1920s as a stock music sold to silent movie cinemas. Library music wouldn’t reach its real heyday until the ‘60s and ‘70s, when companies, and eventually library labels, solicited small but notable composers and session players to produce music for specific concepts. Drama, comedy, sports, commercial jingles, science fiction — a.k.a. “mood” music for broadcasters and low-budget film productions to use as scores — the best being a featured snippet on a low-budget detective show or sci-fi B-movie. The music was ready-made, had infinite thematic possibilities and was less expensive means to score video without expensive licensing fees or a pricy composer commission. The concept proved highly successful, brought a lot of opportunity to behind-the-scenes musicians, and with its imaginative and non traditional approach, harbored an experimental musical playground. The music itself was not cheap, or say bootleg versions of “the real thing,“ but proved to be quite the opposite. It was cutting-edge, experimental and just downright good. It was also never meant to be released publicly. Still, companies thought they could get more traction if they pressed samplers. Some of these now run $1000 for original copies, which speaks to their scarcity; at most, only 200 original copies were pressed. Largely neglected by the average music consumer, they stood in the dollar bins as previews on the offchance customer to see if this music could work on their film project. If they liked it, they would purchase a dub from the master tape and then use it – a process called “synchronization.” These neglected albums would soon find a resurgence in the 90s and 00s, mainly by the hip-hop and digger community. It was a sample paradise; then-cheap records filled with primarily vocal-less music laced with heavy funk, breaks, beats, and wild synths. A bounty of beautiful music filed away for decades, patiently waiting for the proper ear. Within a decade the best moved from the dollar bins to the collectors’ market.