King’s Cross, UK | Independent Label Market: Returning to Canopy Market, King’s Cross on for the weekend on December 15th & 16th for their Christmas market in London, Independent Label Market will be supported by AIM – the Association of Independent Music. The labels are bringing with them their extensive back catalogues plus a selection of amazing market exclusives, rarities, signed goods and exclusive test pressings. Among them, One Little Indian will bring very rare coloured Bjork albums on 12”, Dirty Hit will have the brand new album by The 1975, Ninja Tune will bring latest releases by Peggy Gou and Little Dragon and Brainfeeder will have their brand new 10th anniversary compilation box with unreleased songs from the likes of Flying Lotus, Thundercat and BADBAD-NOTGOOD.
Springfield, VA | Digital Music Is King. So Why Did A Vinyl Record-Pressing Plant Just Open In Virginia? Last year, digital music hit a milestone. For the first time ever, it accounted for more than half of global music sales. Music streaming revenues rose more than 40 percent, while sales of physical recordings continued to sink. Yet a company in Northern Virginia has just started pressing vinyl records. Tucked away in an industrial park in Alexandria, Furnace Record Pressing is the country’s newest record manufacturing facility — and a seemingly batty business idea, if you haven’t paid attention to deeper trends in the music industry lately. Despite the overall downturn in physical recordings like CDs, vinyl sales have been on the rise for a decade now, as younger people have begun to discover the richer sound and collectable nature of old-fashioned records. But as the vinyl frenzy caught on, soaring demand quickly created a problem, says Furnace’s owner, Eric Astor.
Chicago, IL | A portrait of Chicago institution Out Of The Past Records: Almost 50 years in the business. Couple Charlie and Marie Henderson have been selling records in Garfield Park since 1969. A West Side Chicago mainstay, the original Madison Street storefront burned down during riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King. Now at 4407 W. Madison, the shop is a one-stop adventure for eager collectors ready to get dirty and dig. A cross-eyed cat named Shadow roams the store, and you’ll be sure to see some dusty groovers meandering through the stacks alongside you. Records here are ‘strictly old-school’, reasonably priced and gently used. As Marie Henderson says, “you’re guaranteed to find a lot of everything and a lot of nothing, it just depends what you’re looking for.”
Penticton, BC | Sleepovers for Life preserves new B.C. music in vinyl: A Kelowna man is reviving the art of record making. Boutique vinyl cutter, Steve Gibson began his career in Germany a year ago with a 20-hour training day followed by another all-nighter. He had been eyeing up German engineer Souri Automaten’s record cutter, which cuts a vinyl record in real time from digital copies, for quite some time. The only way to buy the equipment is to fly to Germany to be trained by Automaten himself. Then, only once training is completed to Automaten’s satisfaction, can equipment be purchased. Once Gibson returned home he started Sleepovers for Life, his own small-batch, record-cutting company that took off without any advertising. Gibson’s business has been growing solely by word of mouth. In one year he has cut hundreds of records. “Record people are generally collectors. Limited runs mean a huge amount to certain people, myself included. It’s that first pressing, this colour or that colour. The small batches are really fun for a certain group of people,” said Gibson.
The Ultimate Buyer’s Guide to Getting Into Vinyl Records: We’re in the age of digital music — a period in the history of recorded music where any song and any artist is accessible on our mobile phones at anytime. While digital music makes it easier than ever to consume music, formats like vinyl records have not gone away. In fact, in 2017 14% of all physical music was sold on vinyl LP records — and there’s a reason for it. Unlike digital music, there is a physicality to vinyl records, a slowness to it, that requires a listener to browse a stack, pull out a record and slip it onto a turntable. And while digital music may be easier to consume, there is a certain pleasure in hearing music played on a turntable. Audiophiles will tell you that the sound is warmer on records than digital files or CD (this author believes there is some truth to that), and that due to the nature of having to lift a needle on and off a platter, it forces one to listen through a complete album (or at least one side) rather than flipping through tracks with a swipe of your finger.
