“I’ve been casually collecting records since moving out on my own when I was 18.”
“Not long after I got my first apartment, I found an old Dual turntable from the ’70s on the street. A friend (who already had a massive vinyl collection) helped me get it fixed, and set up a full audio system with a vintage receiver and speakers from Ring Audio, in Toronto’s east end. I think my parents paid for it for my 19th birthday, or something like that. It felt like a big growing-up moment! I still use that setup 10 years later, and it still sounds great.
I do buy new vinyl, but my collection mostly consists of ’70s and ’80s stuff. I love ’70s British folk revival albums from groups like Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span. I have a great copy of Control by Janet Jackson that I’ve played over and over. Recently I’ve been loving Breakout by the Pointer Sisters—that one belongs to my roommate. Of my new vinyl, one of my favourites is Free Will by Bry Webb. I like to put that one on and just be quiet.
I’m not a huge digger—I sometimes find the selection in record stores to be overwhelming, so I keep a wish list of vinyl that I want in my phone, and when I’m in a store I look for those titles first. I knocked the Fleetwood Mac album Tusk off the list when I was in LA a couple of years ago—I found a copy in a shop near my friend’s house in Highland Park.
Somehow, though, I lost the record during that trip—so now it’s back on the list! I’ve been on the lookout for a nice copy of Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks for a while now—my parents have a copy, but my mom is a big Van fan, so I can’t steal that one from them.”
—Ivy Mairi
Ivy Mairi’s new EP, “Polarity” arrives in stores next year.
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PHOTO: JENNA LEDGER
