Berlin, DE | The world’s best record shops #122: Bikini Waxx, Berlin: Bikini Waxx Records is a dance music destination for all tastes, opened by Gerd Tammist in 2013 alongside longtime diggers Yannik Zander and Alexander Skancke. Initially founded as an appointment-only spot in the living room and corridors of Tammist’s Berlin home, the store is curated with finesse, and while it’s been running for a number of years, it’s still one of Berlin’s best kept secrets. New and second hand funk cuts from across the African continent and Mediterranean disco from the shores of Naples line up alongside Italo and balearic gems in its racks. And if ‘ambient and mind expanding soundscapes’ aren’t you poison then fret not, because everything from Brazilian Tropicália, to psych and wonky house makes Bikini Waxx Records an adventurous staple for all tastes.
Making Vinyl Conference: RIAA To Set Updated Standards For Vinyl. We are very pleased to announce a collaboration between The RIAA (The Recording Industry Association of America), ‘MAKING VINYL’ and the Media-Tech Association with the goal of updating the standards for vinyl records. Manufacturing specifications for vinyl were last updated in 1978. The advent of new manufacturing technologies and resurgent popularity of vinyl prompted music industry leaders to review existing specifications and evaluate whether updated standards could help further advance the vinyl market. How might new standards help?
Tech me back to the 80’s: Rise in sales of nostalgic gadgets: Brits are going back to the future as retro gadgets sales soar. Vinyl sales of records show no sign of slowing down, in fact according to the most recent figures, the value of the vinyl market in the UK is now £25million. From April 1 to July 1 this year, 420,000 bought a vinyl record, up 6.6%. Vinyl’s rise has also been helped by the annual Record Store Day, more albums available and the view that vinyl is a more authentic way to listen to music. Cassette tapes had their heyday in the mid-80s onwards, before being taken over by CDs and then digital. But cassette sales grew by 90% in the first half of the UK and there’s now a Cassette Store Day on October 13. The surge has been helped by Kylie Minogue, who released 4,000 copies of her country album Golden via cassette ahead of its release. But don’t get too excited – thanks to so few albums released on tape, last year sales were only 20,000.
Lost Charles Mingus live performance set for 5xLP vinyl release: Recorded during the jazz bassist and composer’s week-long residency at Detroit’s Strata Concert Gallery in 1973. A lost recording of jazz iconoclast Charles Mingus performing with a quintet at Detroit’s Strata Concert Gallery in 1973 is set to be released by BBE and 180 Proof this November. Recorded at a short-lived performance space run by independent label Strata Records on Seldon Avenue during the early ’70s, the sessions were transmitted live by producer and broadcaster Robert “Bud” Spangler for WDET-FM radio, and feature Mingus alongside drummer Roy Brooks and trumpeter Joe Gardner (both Detroit natives), pianist Don Pullen, and the saxophonist John Stubblefield. The “lost tapes” were uncovered by DJ Amir Abdullah, who has reissued much of the succinct yet iconic Strata archive in recent years.
