Never Records is my love letter to the record store
Never Records is an art project by New York artist and musician Ted Riederer. The idea is simple: Riederer travels to a city and opens a vinyl record shop and recording studio. Riederer himself oversees the sessions, at the end of which performers leave with a freshly cut vinyl record and digital file of their music. Visitors to the exhibition are encouraged to explore the shop, which features unique artwork and is designed to mimic a long-operating record store; listen to recordings from past Never Records installations; and watch performances as they’re being recorded and cut live.
It is Riederer’s mission to teach the visualization of sound as a mode of active listening. An effect of the Never Records performance is that it contributes quite significantly to the creation of strong community. Dan Cameron, curator of Open Spaces, writes, “there is nearly always that moment in every musical collaborations when a kind of social alchemy is achieved: participants begin radiating the sensation that they’re only part of a larger, communal experience, in which the fundamental element is the sensual joy of listening to music as it’s being created in close proximity, as well as taking part in the mechanical, analog process of capturing that moment on the spot and preserving it on a physical object that can be taken away and played at home.”
With a nod to Fluxus, Alan Kaprow’s Happenings, Alan Lomax, Harry Smith, and the collectivism of the 80s and 90s DC punk scene, Never Records embodies Riederer’s mission to build and galvanize communities based on the act of listening and the visualization of sound. Since 2010, Never Records has traveled to Liverpool; Derry, Ireland; London; Lisbon; New Orleans; Victoria, Texas; Amman, Jordan and Brooklyn, NY.
Photo credit: Ryan Hodgson-Rigsbee
Press Release
Project Updates
