Never Records releases a limited edition album (book) featuring text and images from a decade of Never Records. Featuring essays by artist Ted Riederer, Dan Cameron, Hamed Masri and Saeed Abu-Jabar with photographs by Riederer, Jason Wyche, and Ryan Hodgson-Rigsbee.

The double album comes with three booklets and is stamped with an edition number in silver foil. Only 500 copies have been produced. This album was designed by Jeff Streeper at Modern Identity. Copies will be signed.

Never Records is an artwork, that emphasizes community, listening as a sociopolitical act, transcendental science, visualization of sound, and what Alan Lomax described as fomenting cultural ecstasy. It is heavily influenced by Fluxus, Kaprow’s Happenings, Bourriaud, Harry Smith, and the collectivism of 80s and 90s DC punk scene.

“Since 2010, I have traveled the world cutting vinyl records for free as a social gift,” Riederer says. “With each session, I teach participants the transcendental science of record cutting, along with a physical demonstration of the visualization of sound waves. From New York to Lisbon, Derry, London, Liverpool, Amman, New Orleans, Kansas City, and Brooklyn, I have been teaching the art of listening through the visualization of sound.”

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.

The above unrehearsed improvisation by Grammy-nominated Tarriona Tank Ball and Jonah Tobias was recorded live and cut to vinyl in Ted Riederer’s Never Records.

Tarriona Tank Ball and Ted Riederer by Ryan Hodgson-Rigsbee

“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.” Dan Cameron Essay

Books will ship after September 7, 2021 | Pre-order here!

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