ABOUT THIS ITEM

Honest Jon's has spent the last two years delving through more than 150,000 78rpm records in the temperature-controlled steel vaults of EMI's Archive in Hayes, Middlesex. Following studious compilations of West African and Iraqi music of the 1920s, the latest release in the series is a sparkling late-summer lucky dip, "Sprigs Of Time". An eccentric survey of the Hayes shelves, the album features 30 tracks recorded between 1903 and 1957, everywhere from England (Percy Grainger's recording of the title song, sung by Joseph Taylor in 1908) to Japan (the bewilderingly beautiful "Seigaiha", by the Japanese Imperial Palace Band, five years earlier). Organ rolls from Georgia run alongside Tamils impersonating motorized transport, and rumba from Beirut; 40s fado sits next to the songs of Bengali beggars. As with the other Hayes releases, the tracks have been restored at Abbey Road and are beautifully presented, with extensive contemporary photographs.