“Vinyl has always been special to me. It was maybe the fact it always seemed to be out of bounds when I was younger. Before my dad’s record collection was relegated to the loft, they were not to be played by anyone other than him. I can see his point, his collection was in pristine condition, so why would he want my brother and my grubby hands all over them?”
“Vinyl records were absent from my life for a time but can’t say I missed them because I had never actually played one. It wasn’t until I was about 18 when I started hanging out with a friend who had a massive record collection. It was the first time I was able to really examine them and was interested in how they worked, how the packaging was put together, and what they sounded like. This was uncharted territory for me.
I started going to the second-hand record stores in Glasgow and raiding charity shops. There are a lot of Perry Como records out there. Also, a lot of Crocodiles by Echo and The Bunnymen which was one of my first purchases and subsequently one of my favourite albums. It’s a game of chance when you’re searching through buckets of second-hand records. For every Evol by Sonic Youth, there are 30 Barry Manilow greatest hits albums. You need to have patience.
All of this makes listening to them much more fulfilling for me. As soon as I started buying vinyl I stopped buying CDs. The only times I have bought a CD since have been direct from touring bands at gigs.
Some people don’t care about how they consume their music but it is everything to me. When I was younger, every band I listened to seemed to belong to me and when music began to become more accessible via the internet, vinyl began appealing to me even more. Even if I stream something online now, I don’t feel I’m giving it my undivided attention. As much as a cliché it is, I love the ritual of placing the record on the turntable, lowering the needle and obsessing over the album artwork while I listen to it. Even the smell of old records would do it for me.
It’s funny speaking to my dad about vinyl now as he has given up his entire physical music collection in favour of the ease of digital downloads. I can’t leave vinyl, it’s too important to me.”
—Stuart Galbraith
United Fruit’s sophomore release, Eternal Return is in stores now.
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