RE:VIVE a dating site for archives and electronic musicians

Electronic musicians take pride in making use of strange or rare samples to build larger musical compositions. These samples can range from things like surgical sounds (e.g. Matmos), video game sounds (e.g. Burial), ethnographic recordings (e.g. Romare) or anything else that produces a capturable electronic or sonic pulse. Artists go to great lengths to track down these sounds including rifling through record bins in record stores around the world, scouring the internet, or even simply going out into the field and recording their own.
 
Cultural heritage institutions have teamed up with artists before for various projects around “remixing”. This includes the British Library’s artist-in-residence at Bletchley Park, Sound and Vision inviting Jameszoo to make a new track using their Sound of the Netherlands Collection, UK band Walls remixing BBC sound genius Daphne Oram’s archive for the album Sound Houses and Matthew Herbert doing a Boiler Room session from the British Library. While all these undertakings are unique and special in their own right, Re:vive learns from all of them to create something truly one-of-a-kind that has never been done before.
 
Re:vive marries electronic and independent music with cultural heritage institution collections to create unique musical compositions relating to different social, cultural and political themes. The Re:vive series allows sessions to be organized around the world making this a truly unique by bringing together two things that are ubiquitous in all cultures: music and narrative. Every Re:vive session will produce a new album by emerging and well known artists from around the world with a short companion documentary that will provide insight into the relationship between the artist and content.
 
In 2015 RE:VIVE began building its foundation and growing its network of strategic partners. This included running the first “pilot” session with techno duo, Lakker, running a workshop in collaboration with Red Bull Music Academy, initiating a financial partnership with music production software company Ableton, building informal partnerships with concert promoters and festival organizers The Rest is Noise, Rewire, music publication DJBroadcast and lastly, initiating RE:VIVE session in other countries.
 
Re:vive will provides a completely new way for 1. artists to access cultural heritage institution collections and 2. for the the public to engage with heritage institutions, providing a new channels for sound archives to share their collections with the world. Additionally, Re:vive lets artists conceptualize and compose albums in collaboration with historians and archivists to create new material focused around a specific theme of cultural and historical significance. This rare opportunity allows artists the chance to challenge themselves, by taking on something entirely unique that will help them stand out from the rest of the scene.
 
In this IASA session, we highlight the model of collaboration, the results of the first year and explore plans for the future.