In 2015, Dust To Digital began working on Excavated Shellac: An Alternate History of the World’s Music with record collector, researcher, and writer Jonathan Ward.
At the beginning of the process, things were moving ahead just as they had with so many previous productions: liner notes were finalized, licensing requests were submitted, audio was digitized and restored, and the text and graphic elements were being laid out and designed. Then, like everyone, we were impacted by the Coronavirus pandemic.
Throughout 2020, there were postal service delays, shipping container shortages, record store closures, and manufacturing plant shutdowns. In response to this new reality, D2D made the tough decision to forego a physical version of the Excavated Shellac box set that we had been planning for years, and in December 2020 it was released digitally.
in late 2021 D2D began moving toward fulfilling the original vision for this release. Our designer Barb Bersche who had originally designed the set to be printed and had modified the format for digital release, set to work once again to finalize and submit the files to our printer. D2D decided to expand some of the elements into features like a gloss-laminated box, artbook-quality paper, and die-cut reproductions of vintage record store stickers from Jon’s collection.
The production process was moving along well when they were informed that to print the book we would need to comply with government imposed censorship of the words Dalai Lama, Tibet, and other terms deemed problematic. They found this unacceptable and moved production to a printer in Hong Kong which had a significant impact on the cost of the set.
Now, seven years later the set is now releases in a physical CD box set.
Read about the digitally released set here in an article by Garth Cartwright in The Guardian.