The National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) in Australia is one of my favourite institutions. Archiving, preserving and curating the country’s visual and audio history, often far from the beaten track of what you’d expect to find, there’s a genuine love of archive from everyone I’ve come across there, which really comes through in what they do.
Most importantly is how active they are in digging for film and audio long thought lost, and then bringing it to the forefront for people to access. It’s one thing to sit there and let things pile up for digitisation, another entirely to scour the earth for bits and pieces that may or may not exist.
The NFSA are also great at engaging the community through screenings, research, online exhibitions or blogs; and when I saw that they regularly held BYO record nights I was once again mighty impressed.
It’s actually a surprising number of people who have a small collection of records but don’t actually have a player. Inherited, newly found again or just something hung on to for sentimental reasons, there’s all sorts of reason. NFSA has responded in accord, opening up their doors once a month for people to bring down wax to play and share.
The Vinyl Lounge takes place on the first Friday of every month, with special events coinciding with festivals or annual occurrences (‘The Beatles Down Under‘ and ‘Bastille Day‘ being tow recent themed favourites. And next Friday, for those in Canberra, you’ve got ‘Movie Soundtrack Night‘.
via NSFA
6 November 2015, 5-6:30pm
NFSA Theatrette, Canberra, ACT
Free. No booking necessary. The Bench Room cafe open from 5.00 pm for drinks and snacks.
As part of the Canberra International Film Festival, our team have selected from the thousands of movie soundtracks in our NFSA Collection. Bring along your own LPs, movie soundtrack or not.
The Bench Room cafe is open from 5.00 pm for drinks and snacks, with the Vinyl Lounge grooving from 5.30–6.30 pm. The perfect way to end the day and the week.
Bring your vinyl and play a track of your choice on our pure analogue sound system. Discover music you’ve never heard before, and old favourites you thought you’d never hear again!
The NFSA’s Vinyl Lounge is on the first Friday of the month.
Watch out for special editions of The Vinyl Lounge taking place at festivals and events around the country.
And just for good measure check this awesome blog post with NSFA audio expert Gerry O’Neil being interviewed on restoring records: http://www.nfsa.gov.au/blog/2013/08/09/bringing-records-back-life/