‘This Is Disastrous’: How the Vinyl Industry Is Responding to the Apollo Masters Fire. “We’ve been saying we need to fix this for years,” one vinyl-pressing executive says. “Now we actually need to fix this.” The day that everyone in the vinyl-manufacturing world has been worried about for years finally arrived. Earlier this month, Apollo Masters Corp., one of the two places in the world that produce the lacquer discs needed to assemble master plates for pressing records, burned down. The blaze reportedly took 82 firefighters and three hours to extinguish. No one was harmed, but the fire obliterated the Banning, California, facility responsible for, by most estimates, 70 to 85 percent of the lacquer plates used in vinyl production. There is now just one such factory in the world capable of producing that crucial item, MDC in Japan, leaving the global supply of vinyl in peril. “We’ve all been worried about this, we’ve had meetings about it within the industry,” says Cash Carter, chief operating officer at Kindercore Vinyl Pressing in Athens, Georgia. “We’ve gotten together with all the other pressing plants, lacquer cutters, everybody, and been like, ‘What happens if MDC or Apollo goes away? We’re all fucked…’”
Record Store Day Announces 2020 Ambassador: Brandi Carlile: Ever since 2009, when Jesse Hughes created the title, record stores have been lucky enough to have a special cheerleader every year, an artist to lead the charge and wield the bullhorn, telling the world about the magic that is the record store and the party that is Record Store Day. The time has come to hang the sash on another musician and send them out to talk about record stores in 2020 and the 13th annual celebration of them on April 18. Record Store Day is thrilled that this year the RSD Ambassador title goes to the tireless, fearless, talented, generous, all-around awesome Brandi Carlile. …Carlile says one of the most important things record stores do is “they mine, archive, meticulously care for, and make available to you other people’s dreams.” “The Twins and I have never made an album that we didn’t intend to be in an independent record store. Thank you so much for recognizing this love in me and the Twins and giving us this opportunity. We won’t let you down.”
MI | Needle Drop: What record store owners can’t stop spinning: In 2020, we want to remind you—and ourselves—of the importance of taking a break. And what better way to do that than to take an old (or new) record off the shelf and spin a few tunes? We’re inviting folks from some Michigan record stores we love to talk about what they’re listening to right now. …Jim Dwyer is the co-owner of Encore Records, which has served Michigan listeners for more than 60 years. We talked to him about his favorite records of the moment: Artist: Bo Diddley, Album: Go Bo Diddley, Song: “You Don’t Love, You Don’t Care” “A good example of how the room itself is part of the sound and also how in this era, this was recorded in 1959, a lot of these engineers were mixing live. The needles are right in the red, and if it goes a little too higher, it’s too hot. But they’re mixing it live and you can feel the energy in the session…”
The new ‘High Fidelity’ and the state of the music geek in the digital age: There’s a scene in High Fidelity, the new Hulu series starring Zoe Kravitz as a record store owner, in which her character, Rob (short for Robyn), shows up unannounced at the apartment of British ex-boyfriend Mac. She wants to hear him say that he loves her more than his new partner, Lily, and that the couple have no plans to marry, thereby ruining Rob’s life. (Good luck with that.) But Rob needs to know something else, something equally important. Has Mac listened to her playlist? Since they split up, Rob has been doing on her own what she and her two employees, Simon and Cherise, routinely do together in a shop rarely overrun with customers: make lists. They might be exercises in pop culture fandom — Top 5 David Bowie albums, Greatest Movie Villains of All Time — or more serious collections, like the Top 5 breakups in Rob’s life that have left her unattached in her early 30s. On that, Mac is Number One, and his absence in her life inspires Rob to make a playlist because — well, isn’t that what you do in a time of emotional crisis?
This minimal new portable turntable features Wi-Fi and Bluetooth: With a replaceable Audio-Technica cartridge and aluminium casing. A new portable turntable called the CT-01, created by Coturn, is crowdfunding on Kickstarter. Designed in collaboration with Habibi Funk, the CT-01 is a more sturdy portable turntable than typical plastic models, with an aluminium casing. Half the size of a 12″ record, CT-01 is operated via a touchscreen display that activates once the tone arm is extended, with adjustable speed settings.Able to play 7″, 10″ and 12″ vinyl, it also boasts Wi-Fi and bluetooth capability, a replaceable Audio-Technica AT 3600 needle, and a headphone jack. Alongside the standard version, the CT-01 comes in a gold Habibi Funk model and a black Jakarta Records model, both of which have each respective label’s logo laser engraved on its side.
Save £1000 on Pro-Ject Xpression and Signature record players: A very tempting trade-in deal. Record Store Day isn’t until 18th April, but Henley Audio is already giving vinyl lovers a reason to rejoice. The audio retailer has unveiled a stonking trade-in deal that could save you up to £1000 on a Pro-Ject turntable. From Monday 24th February, customers can trade-in any ‘hi-fi-quality’ turntable in return for a juicy discount on either a Pro-Ject Xtension line or Signature line spinner. Simple, eh? If you’re prepared to part with your old record player you can get £1000 off the suggested retail price of the Signature 10. That would slash the cost from £4250 to £3250. The same deal applies to the Signature 12, which would cut the price from £8000 to £7000. The savings don’t end there, though. The ‘Pro-Ject High-End Trade-In Promotion’ will also bag you £500 off the suggested retail price of the Pro-Ject Xtension 9, Xtension 10 and Xtension 12 turntables. Henley says it will honour trade-in deal provided that your old turntable is of hi-fi-quality, no matter the make or model.
Soundtrack to the 1999’s “Matrix” film to be released on vinyl! The Matrix will be debuting the fourth installment of The Matrix film franchise next year. Before that, you can get your nostalgia on with a new Matrix vinyl record! The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack to the 1999 sci-fi hit The Matrix by composer Don Davis will be released for the first time as a picture disc LP on March 13, 2020, exclusively from Varèse Sarabande Records. Side A features an image of the Matrix’s green code, while Side B shows Neo (Keanu Reeves) in full action mode. The soundtrack album weds Davis’ mastery of musical detail and coloration to a largely atonal postmodern concerto that’s complex, dark and unrelenting. The vinyl is now available for pre-order on VareseSarabande.com. After the success of the first film, The Matrix, directed by The Wachowski Brothers, went on to become a billion-dollar franchise, and Don Davis’ epic scores propelled the story forward across the trilogy, in which Keanu Reeves plays Neo, a computer hacker who learns from mysterious rebels about the true nature of his reality and his role in the war against its controllers.
