“When the needle hits the groove, everybody recognises that signature sound.”
“I think it is built into our DNA now from generations of our grandparents hearing ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ for the first time—it’s hereditary and the reason it’s remained as a format for so long is you can’t deny the intoxicating experience of spinning a record for the first time. It’s an addiction, there’s something sensual about it that is truly unique in itself.
My parents have an exhaustive record collection and they bonded through music. Pop hits of the ’80s when they were growing up like Tango in the Night, those club Bowie records that took the world into a new dimension. Music was such an obsession back then, falling in love with a band was like picking a team. It identified you, and you lived your life through the shared ideals of other like-minded people.
Today, in a world where music is background noise—something to jog to or make public transport tolerable, vinyl stands alone defiantly non-portable—it deservedly demands you give it your time to take you into an artist’s life and out of yours for a moment.
I would obsessively analyse every corner of the sleeves looking for details, easter eggs that would grant me a closer bond to the people currently filling the silence in my room from the tiny inscriptions on the vinyl itself. It’s a connection that you just cannot replicate staring blankly at a thumbnail on your iPod.
Shopping for records is an adventure alone. You can’t look for something specific and you are often surprised by what is lurking in a dusty corner—original pressings that have b-sides or live takes that you can’t get anywhere else.
It’s an obsession that transcends generations and genres in an increasingly confined industry.”
—Dominic Thomson
Rebel Westerns’ “Atomic Blonde” is in stores 9th September 2016 via Depot Records.
