“It can be easily said that I suffer from an unhealthy obsession with buying records on vinyl. At the outset, for as long as I can remember, I have been surrounded by family and friends who collected records in all genres and forms.”
“In early years, sharing records between close friends and classmates was of paramount importance in order to be exposed to as much music as was humanly possible. There was only so far your pocket money could take you!
To reflect on my current collection, I would find it hard to place a leaning towards any specific genre. There is everything from Bjork, Tom Waits, Radiohead, Robert Wyatt, Brian Eno, Mogwai, Miles Davis, Frank Zappa, along with a number of film scores. The ‘ritual’ of listening to a record on vinyl, spending hours in local record shops not knowing what you will come out with, is one of the great pleasures in life.
With such a stigma about obtaining music free now, people are quick to forget that there was a significant amount of everybody’s record collection that consisted somewhat of ‘free’ records. I suppose where the problem lies is in the shift in balance between people’s collections of ‘purchased’ against that ‘free.’
I feel great sadness that people seem to no longer value their music and spend £8 to £10 for an album, yet have no problem paying £4 for a coffee?
The coffee doesn’t quite reflect the power that showing off your records for a girl you like down the street. Or, in twenty years time will you still taste the coffee of that day, or be transported to the location and sense of youth when you first heard a certain record? Most likely, no.
I think I will leave that debate there, don’t want to turn this into a rant about the current industry’s problem. But what I will say is that the physical element of records is still very much important to me and it was a huge factor when we set out putting together the physical element of our debut album, The awkward hello, handshake, kiss.
Although we did not press vinyl, the CD packaging we designed is not standard, and you get a number of loose pieces of 7” artwork. It was important to us that anybody wishing to buy the CD would have something to cherish.”
—Stephen Houlihan
Hiva Oa released the double A-side single “Badger” / “Urban” via mini50records on 10th December 2012.
