Cavendish Archive: Hidden Gems of Library Music

Inspiration

Cavendish Archive: Hidden Gems of Library Music

Producers like MF DOOM, Prince Paul & Madlib pioneered the use of library music in hip-hop: sampling dusty material originally composed for the use in TV, film and radio. That uncommercial use allowed (session) musicians to freely do what they do best: create music. Without any pressure from labels. That shows in the variety and richness of archives like that of Cavendish Music, the largest production music publisher in the UK. Tracklib spoke to Arun Sethi, producer at Cavendish Music.

By

Tracklib

·

November 25, 2020

Which Cavendish tracks or artists on Tracklib are essential to you personally for people to hear, that perfectly illustrate your catalog?

Dennis Farnon is my favorite artist from our 60s and 70s catalog. His stuff is the paragon of that mysterious big band sound you get in British Library music from that era. “South Bound” is an amazing track on its own and has also been sampled by a number of artists, including on Mark B & Blade’s “The Unknown,” one of the albums that got me into hip-hop. “Snowmobile” is probably my favorite, though. I’d love to hear Ghostface Killah rap on it one day!

Another composer Ray Davies was still writing for us up until 2009 and still coming into our office until he died a couple of years ago... It was incredible to work with someone who was part of those golden years of library music. “Espresso Bongo” is probably my favorite of all his tracks on Tracklib.

What makes library music (still) relevant in this day and age?

We are still creating hundreds of great new tracks every year! With the 60s and 70s stuff, it has such a distinctive sound to it, in terms of both style and production. Library music was written to evoke particular moods, so we continue to have this emotional response to it. And it’s relevant because of the nostalgic response we have, due to it being so closely tied to classic television programs that we grew up with.

"The music is often a lot darker and moodier than commercial music from the time, which makes it suited to counterculture's such as hip-hop."

—Arun Sethi (Producer at Cavendish Music)

The Cavendish archives opened up before, such as in the Samplethon with WhoSampled. What’s it like to hear music from your catalog getting a new treatment by modern-day producers?

The amazing thing about the Samplethon project was that I only knew a small part of our archive catalogue before that. WhoSampled assembled a great team of sample-savvy producers and we spent a whole day scouring our old basement for sample gold.

There are a lot of great loopable extracts on the catalog. But my favorite thing is always hearing a really creative flip. The way a producer samples a track demonstrates how he hears it. So it’s always interesting to see how people hear the catalog in comparison to the way that I do.

cavendish music mr thing chris read arun sethi

Since the late 80s and 90s, library music has received cult status among hip-hop producers. What makes library music so rich and attractive to hip-hop producers, next to sampling (commercially released) records?

I think a big part of the allure of library records is that they weren’t distributed commercially or in big numbers, so it made the music much harder to find. Most libraries, Cavendish included, used almost identical sleeves for all their albums, so you had to be a killer digger to find the best material.

The music is often a lot darker and moodier than commercial music from the time, which makes it quite suited to counterculture music like hip-hop. It was also written to sound distinctive while allowing space for voiceover – which makes it ideal for making music to rap over! In the 60s and 70s, the libraries were very open to experimentation, and so you get some really cool stuff that might have never made it onto vinyl.

How do you think Tracklib can change the way people sample?

When you look at the legal difficulties that sampling artists have had, and the catalogs which never got paid for their content being sampled, Tracklib is such a great way to bring those two parties together in a way that everybody wins. Plus I think that as the tracks are more accessible, it encourages people to be more creative with their sampling, which can only push music forward!

You’ve sampled library music yourself before as well. Any noteworthy tracks available on Tracklib that you’d love to hear flipped?

As a producer, I prefer to go with tracks I don’t know so well. So I’d love to do an epic trap remix of “Agitato Riots Etc.” It’s quite fun to see how over the top you can go sometimes.

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