Excavated Shellac: An Alternate History of the Worlds Music (1907-1967) Dust-to-Digital

100 recordings on 4 CDs. 184-page hardcover book printed on artbook-quality paper. Packaged in a deluxe gloss-laminated box.

It begins with a South African choir from 1930 and a song about police brutality; it ends in Cuba with dreamy innuendo. This collection is about music that is often invisible in today’s world, the incredible world of global recordings that aren’t jazz, blues, country, rock ‘n roll, R&B, or “classical.”

This physical edition of the box set, eight years in the making, contains 100 tracks and 100 stories in an extensive, illustrated 184-page book with detailed, contextual mini-histories about both musical origins and the beginnings of the industry, touching on the complexities of colonialism, economic agendas, and cultural tourism.

With nearly all of the tracks never before reissued, this collection expands upon and acts as a companion to Jonathan Ward’s Excavated Shellac website, a unique repository of music, history, and data on 78 rpm recordings from around the world, rarely heard and seldom seen.