The Last Shadow Puppets beat David Bowie to win album art prize: A record cover featuring a 1969 image of Tina Turner has beaten David Bowie’s final release Blackstar to a prize for the year’s best album artwork. The Last Shadow Puppets’ Everything You’ve Come to Expect was selected from 50 entrants in the annual awards. Mark Pritchard’s photo landscapes for his Under the Sun record came third, according to a public vote. Now in its 11th year, the prize is organised by Art Vinyl, a company that promotes record covers as art.
Two floors, 15,000 LPs: Record ‘megastore’ comes to Bournemouth as vinyl sales rocket: The spectacular comeback of the vinyl LP has coincided with the return of a record shop to central Bournemouth. Figures released earlier this week show vinyl record sales reached their highest levels in 25 years, boosted by “millennials” who were not around in the heyday of the format. Locally, radio producer and former 2CR DJ Alan Rowett and his partner Chrissy Collier opened a Bournemouth branch of the Vault just before Christmas. The business started in Stalbridge and the pair opened a Christchurch shop in 2014.
Precision Record Pressing Plant Getting Ready To Roll: The much-publicized news that Calgary record pressing plant Canada Boy Vinyl is ceasing operations continues to reverberate. Better news on the near horizon is that the also much-discussed Precision Record Pressing plant, based in Burlington, Ontario, is very close to begin pumping out vinyl at its plant. VP of Sales Paul Miller told FYI this week that the highly-anticipated opening of the plant “is now scheduled for later this month. We’re just in the final stages of electricals. We haven’t completely settled on an etched in stone date as to when records will start pressing.
Sales of vinyl reach 25-year high: Gary Smith, who runs Cowley Road’s Truck Store and Witney’s Rapture said he hoped the good times just kept on rolling. He said: “We have seen a massive spike in sales of vinyl across the range really. “We are seeing huge increases in vinyl’s like David Bowie and Pink Floyd, all the classics but also the new releases that are coming to vinyl. “We are also selling more turntables every year. It’s great, it’s a real success story. “It has been gradually climbing every year, and we have seen an increase every year.
Absolute Vinyl Is a Rare Record Collector’s Paradise: Finding dusty record shops that cater to artsy geeks has never been so hard in Boulder, where the city’s eccentric charm has been diluted by a sky-high cost of living and an influx of techies from the coasts. Absolute Vinyl is one of the last spots where the college town’s once notorious weirdness still lingers. Owners Doug and Annie Gaddy, a husband-wife duo, will celebrate the shop’s eighth anniversary and the sale of its 80,000th record next month. Absolute Vinyl carries new albums from labels big and small, and has the most diverse selection of high-quality vintage vinyl of any shop along the Front Range.
Viva las Vinyl! Records are king again and here’s how to spot the original albums that could be worth a fortune: The growing demand for records has also provided a lift for the collectable market, with discs that once sold for a few pence in charity shops and car boot sales changing hands for several pounds – while the most rare examples sell for thousands. Katie Wheeler, of record shop David’s Music in Letchworth, Hertfordshire, says: ‘There is no substitute to playing music on vinyl. Not only is the quality better than from a digital player but you are able to enjoy a more rewarding experience. ‘Everything from thumbing through your prized collection then pulling a record from a beautifully illustrated sleeve to the crackle as the needle passes over a memorable bump or scratch in the record groove – it is all part of listening pleasure.’
Streams? What Streams? For Newvelle Records, Vinyl Is the Future: The jazz pianist Elan Mehler hovered over a vinyl-cutting lathe at Masterdisk studios as a mastering engineer laid a blank disc onto the plate and paused for a moment, listening for hints of interference as the blade sliced across the surface. The men were here, an hour north of New York City, to cut master recordings for Newvelle Records, the small label that Mr. Mehler, 37, founded two years ago with his business partner, Jean-Christophe Morisseau. The discs will be sent to France to be replicated en masse and mailed to Newvelle’s subscribers.
