The Audio and Sound Museum

An experimental place

Permanent and temporary exhibitions
Guided tours
Conferences
Masterclasses
Workshops
Live sessions and events
Resource and media center

Old Gear New Music:

When the Studio meets the Museum

To launch the Kerwax Museum project, we are cooking something special for you...

Following the framework of Arte Concert TV "Live at Kerwax", we will invite musicians for an outstanding experience! Create or reinterpret their music using the various instruments available in the museum, with as a constraint, an aesthetic defined in advance: stereo or mono, electric or acoustic recording, 1 microphone for everyone or multi-microphones, raw sound or with effects...

100% analog sessions on magnetic tape and/or vinyl (direct to disc) with video capture!

Our First Ambassadors :

A project in progress with members of Portishead, Massive Attack, Get The Blessing & Robert Plant

Gather a superband for a unique performance, and deliver 20 minutes of pure happiness, in vinyl version, picture disc Maxi 45T, on magnetic tape reel to reel and on cassette ...

(All good cooking takes time, time to organize, write, record, mix and press the records ! That's why the delivery is scheduled for July.)

Your patience will be rewarded ;-)

The Origins:

KERWAX is at first Marie and Christophe Chavanon, passionate about music and sound who spend their energy and time to keep the old analog recording technology alive !

30 years of practical experience of music
20 years of recording, more than 300 albums

In 2012, we settled down in Loguivy-Plougras, a charming village in Brittanny, France.

On a shoestring budget and with some elbow grease, we turned the ancient boarding school into a residential analog recording studio.

[KER] : "the house" in brittany langage

[WAX] : "wax for the vinyl"

So, KERWAX, the "house of analog"

On the way, we have been joined by two genious electronicians, Maël Bellec and Olivier Pailler, together we have conceived, designed and build custom tools for the studio, like our custom 24 channels tube mixing desk !

The Recording Studio :

During the past 8 years, we have produced and recorded many artists, organised several "live sessions" for Arte concert with Lou Doillon, Rover, Grand Blanc, Last Train or Radio Elvis, welcome pupils, people with disabilities, turned the studio into a film set for "Cosmic Trip"/"Space is the Place" a film by Christophe Conte et Gaëtan Chataigner....

SERENDIPITY

Jean-Francois Vallée, from KEROUAC to KERWAX

Actor and witness of the Beat Generation, journalist for ORTF, Rock&Folk, Radio France, Le Monde, Arte…

He moved to the USA in 1959 at the very time of political, social and cultural changes, encountered and worked with Mort Shuman, Miles Davis, Charly Mingus, James Brown, John Lennon, Andy Warhol, Dali, Josephine Baker, John Huston, Robert Michum, Fitzgerald, Alan Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Robert Wyatt, BB king, Aretha Franklin, Johnny Cash, Santana, The Clash, Talking Heads, B52, Bad Brains, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, Grand Master Flash , Afrika Bambaata, Public Ennemy, Wu-Tang Clan....

And as incredible as it seems , Jean-François was a pupil of our Saint-Joseph boarding school in the 1950's ! So when he came back from New-York for good in 2018, we decided to collaborate to put his career path into light through Kerwax Museum thanks to the numerous and rare testimonies he has been collecting. Back to the roots !

Klaus Blasquiz, from MAGMA to MUSELEC

Artist, singer of the band MAGMA, MUSELEC founder, expert speaker, collectioneer, he has been collecting over 400 m3 of audio material over the last decades, at a time when the all-digital was making them obsolete. He founded Muselec, the sound and electricity museum, to save and preserve these historical audio items and is now transmitting the collection to Kerwax Museum.

Joël Sévénéant,

Father & sons backline provider since 1956 in Gourin (56), he rents amplifiers, guitares, keyboards to most of the Brittany's venues. Kerwax Museum is the opportunity to preserve and still use legend instruments now too fragile to go out onstage.

Daniel Oudjehih,

Living in Loguivy-Plougras, this music lover but also vinyl collector has started to digitize all of his records to feed Brittany radios. He has been promoting free access to culture for all and has decided, for the development of our village, to bequeath his thousands of vinyl records to the association so that they can be listened to by the greatest number of people.

From these incredible encounters was born the idea of the project that we present to you today, with the active participation of:

Guy Darol, Marianne Gauthier-Destables, Nicolas Fenouillat, Aude Planterose, Eric Berthelier, Antoine Bourgougnon et Léa Auzanneau-Bourgougnon, Béatrice Riou, Jean-Luc Bernard, Florent Dichampt, Thomas de Fraguier, Ludovic Lanen, Eric Lebrun et Vincent Paulic, and with the support of Recording The Masters, the one of the last magnetic tape manufacturer in the world which happens to sit 20mn away from Kerwax.

The Plan :

Create a living and experimental museum, between a “cabinet de curiosités”, a resource and conference center around music, inside the 1000 sq. m free space available in the studio building.

Tell the technological, economical, artistic and cultural story of music, from the 19th century on, through thousands of rare and unusual objects, documents and testimonies:

Hundreds of guitars and bass.Mixing desks, like the ORTF or Olympia mixers from the Edith Piaf, Jacques Brel, Brassens era.

Hundred of microphones, keyboards, synths, tape recorders including the one used for The Beatles recording session in 1964 at EMI Pathé Marconi Studio.

Original posters.Thousands of vinyls, magazines, user tech manuals.

Rare and unheard interviews from John Lennon, Miles Davis, Robert Wyatt, The Clash, and more

KERWAX Museum

Our commitments