Christian Marclay was born in 1955 in San Rafael, California, and raised in Geneva, Switzerland. He studied at Geneva's Ecole Superieure d'Art Visuel before returning to the United States to complete his BFA at the Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, in 1980. He is now based in New York. Solo exhibitions of his work have been held at prestigious museums around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco (2002), Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany (2002), the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2001), the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (2000), Kunsthaus Zurich, Switzerland (1997). He has participated in numerous international group exhibitions organized by institutions such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2002 & 2001), the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia (2001), the Hayward Gallery, London, UK (2000), Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France (2000), the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, UK (1999), and the Ludwig Museum, Cologne, Germany (1998). Marclay has been performing and recording music since 1979. As a musician and DJ, he has released solo and collaborative records since the 1980's, and has performed at such venues as New York's Knitting Factory and The Kitchen. He has performed with a diverse group of musicians and DJs, including Sonic Youth, Kronos Quartet, Fred Firth, Butch Morris, John Zorn and Arto Lindsay. Marclay's solo releases include "Record Without a Cover," 1985, "More Encores," 1988, and "Records," 1997.

Records is a compilation of early experiements using turntable and tape manipulation from exisiting recordings. It is the fullest summary of this important artists early work to date, serving as a good introduction to his work and contextualises him as a highly significant and histroically important composer and artist.