“My first experience with vinyl was rummaging through my parents collection looking for hidden gems to sample when I was a teenager. Turntablism was a big thing at the time and although that approach never really became directly part of my music making, it inspired me to begin the rummage…there’s always a certain reverence to vinyl which was never really part of CDs and certainly isn’t part of download/digital culture.”
“The size of the actual item, its weight (both physically and sonically) always tend to inspire care and respect to whatever is pressed on the wax. I even buy vinyl now just for the artwork, even though I don’t have a deck at the moment.
The sound of vinyl had a big impression on me. Its slight warped haziness, the weight of the sound, the imperfections, those moments of run out groove which bookend a listening experience. The moment at the end of a good record has this added poignancy with a run out groove running over and over, as if that’s all there is left to say.
I’m always shocked when I hear certain records on Mp3 after only hearing them on vinyl. That weight and sense of something seems to be lost. There’s a sense of deliberate action to vinyl; you ‘put on a record’, you have to turn it over, engage with it, and remove the needle at the end. It’s not a playlist which randomly populates itself.
A cover I always remember is Bola’s Fyuti (on Skam records). The gatefold had this huge and intricate sea creature on it, which just looked incredible. The size and print quality really elevated it to the status of art. My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless also has a beautiful cover on vinyl. I also remember staring at Rothko’s “40 years to find a voice,” with its textured fur photo for hours as I listened to the music.
I find myself missing vinyl more and more. Once I get settled in one place and get my stuff together, finally I may go back to being one of those tedious ‘vinyl-only’ people for listening, despite the fact that digital tools are a big part of my working process.”
—Matthew Collings
