The Secret Museum of Mankind – Guitars Vol 1: Prologue to Modern Styles

Curated by 78rpm record collector Pat Conte, The Secret Museum of Mankind series from Jalopy Records returns with the first new volume in the legendary series since 1998. It is also the first volume of the series to focus on a specific instrument, the guitar. This new volume seeks to show the diverse range of guitar and guitar-related music, with tracks recorded across the world from Spain, Papua New Guinea and Greece to Ghana, India and beyond.

The collection is drawn from Conte's pioneering and remarkable personal collection of 78rpm discs, recorded in the 1920s-1950s. The album succeeds by gathering often stunning recordings that are different yet complement each other. Pierre Borel & Polo Quilici's ‘Complainte Corse’ is delicate and arch while Cuarteto Aguilar's ‘Fiesta Mora en Tánger’, which follows it, is brilliantly odd, akin to a film soundtrack with its dramatic shifts in tempo and intense rhythms. Almost all the recordings are instrumental and, while there's a degree of hiss here (due to being mastered from 78s) this is an extremely listenable album. If I have a criticism it's an overabundance of Spanish classical/flamenco tunes yet an absence of Hawaiian and Mexican.