Robert Millis

Epiphanies column in the Wire (December, 2018). A playlist for this piece is HERE

Article in STUDIO VOICE, from Japan. 2019.

PARIS TO CALCUTTA: MEN AND MUSIC ON THE DESERT ROAD (Sublime Frequencies, 2018)

I produced and edited this 160 page book about Deben Bhattacharya for Sublime Frequencies. An honor to work on and a pleasure to go through the more than 40 hours of recordings from 10 countries made by Deben on this expedition in 1955.

Deben Bhattacharya (1921–2001) was a field recordist, poet, filmmaker, musicologist and amateur ethnomusicologist, based in Calcutta and Paris. Highly influential, it would not be too bold a stretch to say that his work shaped how we listen to the world: he produced a vast number of LPs, CDs, videos and radio shows of traditional music from India, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe from 1953 until his death in 2001.

Paris to Calcutta: Men and Music on the Desert Road features over 4 hours of music and is Deben’s impressionistic account of a 1955 journey overland, in a converted milk delivery van, from France to India collecting and exploring music along the Desert Road from Europe into India. With 4 CDs of recordings, photographs, Deben’s original recording notes, musical transcriptions and more. An amazing glimpse into a time long gone and essential listening for anyone interested in folk and world music traditions.

“Actually, I think my playing is probably more derived from the folk music records that I heard; Middle Eastern music, Indian music…for years I had something called ‘Music On The Desert Road’, which was an album with all kinds of different ethnic music. I used to listen to that all the time.” –Frank Zappa, 1993 (from an interview in Guitarist Magazine, talking about an LP released by Deben in 1956 using a few edited versions of the music included on this compilation.).

Beautiful design by John Hubbard.

The book is available HERE

Photo essay: Eine Lektion In Zeit Und Verganglichkeit (Published by the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, 2018). More info HERE

INDIAN TALKING MACHINE (Sublime Frequencies, 2015)

From 2012 through 2013 I was a Senior Fulbright Researcher in India–studying the Indian 78rpm gramophone industry through the eyes of record collectors and sound artists. In December 2015, Sublime Frequencies published a 244 page book featuring two CDs of music from my collection of Indian shellac discs, written musings on Indian classical music and collecting, detailed track notes, and over 300 of my photographs of 78rpm collections and ephemera. An art book. A photo book. An abstracted celebration of sound and collecting. Designed by John Hubbard.

A short video about the book is HERE.

Since the publication of Indian Talking Machine I have given numerous illustrated lectures about Indian music, early recording history, oral tradition and my time in India. A partial list of venues include: Seattle’s Asian Art Museum, The Anthology Film Archives in New York, Harvard University, NYU, The Onassis Cultural Center in Athens, International House in Tokyo, Tokyo University, The National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka, La Phonogalerie in Paris, and the Sonapani Music festival in Uttarakhand, India.

 

La presencia del sonido,  exhibition catalog. (Fundacio Botin, Santander, Spain, 2013). Essay and photographs documenting my research in India and the installation From The Household of HH The Maharajah Sir Jotendro Mohan Tagore at the Fundacio Botin, Spain.

I edited and produced this beautiful book by painter and sound artist Steve Roden. Published by Dust-to-Digital in 2010, featuring 100s of vernacular music photographs and two CDs of music.

Victrola Favorites (Dust to Digital, Atlanta, GA, 2008). Created in collaboration with Jeffery Taylor, long time music partner in Climax Golden Twins, this clothbound book features 100s of images and 2 CDs of music from our collections of 78rpm shellac records and is a way of looking at the art of collecting and the ephemera from the dawn of the music industry.