Plans for new vinyl record shop and cafe in Buxton approved: High Peak Borough Council this week granted a change of use application for the ground floor of 2-4 South Avenue to a mixed retail and cafe use. Documents submitted on behalf of applicant Neil McDonald reveal the vacant retail premises is intended to be used for the sale of new and used vinyl records, as well as offering customers coffee and light snacks. A report prepared by council planning officer stated: “Permission is sought for a change of use from shop to a mixed use of a shop selling vinyl records and related merchandise and a cafe. “The applicant has clarified that no cooking will take place on the premises, they will be serving coffee, tea, cakes, sandwiches and merely warming up food (paninis) using a panini press (similar to a sandwich toaster).”
“It’s about taking responsibility for our future”: How Brazil is reclaiming its record culture: Brazil has long been something of a promised land for the world’s adventurous collectors, reissue labels and DJs. So vast and varied is its musical heritage that decades after Madlib first went to Brazil, it’s clear they’ve hardly scratched the surface. But with foreign buyers and increased demand pushing prices beyond the reach of most Brazilians, the country has reached something of a crisis point in relation to its records. With new pressing plant Vinil Brasil now open in São Paulo and local labels rescuing music from beyond the European experience, Russ Slater investigates how Brazilians are staking a claim to their own music once again.
Albert Einstein’s Record Collection To Go On Display: A new exhibition, called ‘Albert Einstein: Life in Four Dimensions’, is set to feature Albert Einstein’s record collection. The exhibition will travel around Asia through this year, as The Times of Israel reports, and will include artefacts from the Albert Einstein archive at Hebrew University including “the physicist’s own vinyl record collection, his 1921 Nobel Prize, handwritten pages from the theory of relativity, and letters exchanged with Sigmund Freud, family and friends,” according to a spokesperson at the university. The exhibition runs from today (January 12) until April 8 at the National Chiang Kei-Shek Memorial Hall in Taipei, Taiwan, and then will be presented in Japan and China later in the year.
Audiophilia forever: And expensive new year’s shopping guide: …A growing corpus of young music lovers have, in recent years, become attached to vinyl—demanding vinyl from their favorite groups as they issue new albums, flocking to new vinyl stores. For some, it may be about the sound. Or maybe it’s about backing away from corporate culture and salesmanship. Vinyl offers the joys of possessorship: if you go to a store, talk to other music lovers, and buy a record, you are committing to your taste, to your favorite group, to your friends. In New York, the independent-music scene, and the kinds of loyalties it creates, are central to vinyl. In any case, the young people buying vinyl have joined up with two sets of people who never really gave up on it: the scratchmaster d.j.s deploying vinyl on twin turntables, making music with their hands, and the audiophiles hoarding their LPs…
Here are the UK’s top 20 best selling vinyl records of 2017: 2017 was another landmark year for vinyl, with record sales peaking at their highest level since 1991, reports the BPI. An impressive 4.1 vinyl albums were sold in the UK last year and vinyl now accounts for roughly 3% of all music consumed, including digital, streaming, and physical releases. Among the UK’s 20 biggest selling vinyl albums of 2017, 14 were reissues, with Amy Winehouse’s Back To Black making the top five for the third year in a row. Depressingly, Ed Sheeran’s Divide tops the list, followed by Liam Gallagher’s debut solo LP As You Were. Radiohead’s third album OK Computer – which celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2017 – sits at number 11, while David Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust is at number 20.
Record makers to open in Glasnevin: Dublin Vinyl, which operates two of first vinyl pressing machines to be manufactured since the 1980s, launched in December and will soon begin full production in a 100,000-monthly record pressing capacity at Tolka Valley Business Park. The company is celebrating the opening of its Northside plant with its first records off the press, which include ‘The Joshua Tree – New Roots LP’. The album features some of Ireland’s most outstanding musical talent covering songs from U2’s seminal Grammy Award-winning album and proceeds from sales will help the Laura Lynn Foundation. Universal Music Ireland and RTE 2FM are behind the 12 track collection, which features leading artists including Kodaline, The Strypes, Imelda May and Picture This taking on songs from U2’s classic 1987 album The Joshua Tree.
