Bloomington, IN | Bloomington’s newest record store is actually an old favorite: TD’s CDs and LPs, Bloomington’s eclectic record store that’s been housed in the basement of the Kirkwood Avenue Soma since it opened in 1998, is rebranding to “Walkover Sounds and Stones” and moving into a new shop on the Square with a little more elbow room – and a lot more daylight. In August, the record store moved into the former site of Global Gifts at 122 N. Walnut St., next door to Amrit India, after over 25 years as Soma’s subterranean neighbor. Its new title, “Walkover Sounds and Stones,” is a reference to the bygone Walk Over Boot Shop that once occupied the storefront (and whose mosaic tile sign is still in the entryway). Though TD’s quirky location as Bloomington’s “underground record store” has long been a hallmark of its identity, Will Bewley, the store’s owner, says he’s been ready to move out of the basement for years. “We’ve had to deal with flooding and were constantly having to seal the flooring and work with humidifiers,” Bewley said. “I just wanted to be in a place with more room to grow.”
Stirling, UK | Stirling institution Europa Music is the record shop with nine lives and a powerful legacy: Withstanding fire, recessions and lockdown, Europa Music has been selling joy on vinyl and CD for more than 30 years in Stirling city centre. Ewen Duncan has an impeccable memory. Dates, album titles, the eventual career paths of former staff members going back decades—they all spring easily to the mind of Europa Music’s owner. After 42 years of trading, the 65-year-old seems as energetic and passionate as ever when it comes to the business of selling records from his shop on Friars Street in Stirling’s city centre. Europa is a music connoisseur’s dream—large, but still packed to the rafters with vinyl, CDs, cassettes, books and other merchandise, like band T-shirts and patches. Rare LPs dangle enticingly from the ceiling. Stacks upon stacks of plastic crates hold the stock that groaning wooden browsers on every wall can’t contain. Further in, tall shelves are loaded with many hundreds of tapes. Oh, and that’s not even taking into account the 30,000 7-inch singles upstairs, waiting to be sorted.
Fort Lauderdale, FL | Connect Records Rises From Radio-Active’s Ashes in Fort Lauderdale: Connect Records will focus more on imported vinyl, dance music, 45s, and other specialty records. They say when one door closes, another opens, and in Fort Lauderdale, one beloved record store will give way to another. Two former staffers for Radio-Active Records, the venerable vinyl emporium that closed its doors permanently on September 1, have shared exclusively with New Times their plans to open a new shop, Connect Records, in Fort Lauderdale’s Thrive Art District development. The new shop’s co-owners, Natalie Martinez and Mick Ford, hope to open by the first weekend of October. “We felt like one of the main things in the industry that is needed right now is connection between communities,” says Martinez, the general manager at Radio-Active since 2010, of the new shop’s name. “It was also one of the only names that wasn’t taken that had to do with all the ideas we had in our heads.” At 781 square feet, Connect is smaller than Radio-Active’s final location, but its location in the year-old Thrive Art District affords plenty of opportunities.
Whanganui, NZ | Cutting-edge electronica comes to life at the Vinyl Room: Whanganui record store The Vinyl Room has teamed up with local electronic dance producer Body Beat Ritual to celebrate the release of their debut 12″ on Whanganui’s newest record label, Pleasure. This Friday, you are invited to sample a taste of cutting-edge electro at the Pleasure Records release party for Body Beat Ritual’s Fixation EP. Since relocating to Whanganui from Auckland, Body Beat Ritual has released a series of well-received EPs on international labels, all written and recorded in the River City. Body Beat Ritual’s live electronica is made and performed with hardware synths, samplers and drum machines. His abiding musical influence is techno, which took a futuristic take on 1980s electro acts such as New Order and Front 242 and combined the funk of American club music and the style of cinematic disco (think Georgio Moroder and Donna Summer’s I Feel Love) with the dark visual punch of the cyberpunk genre that produced iconic cultural works such as Bladerunner and Akira.
Petoskey, MI | Hexagon Records opens as the only devoted vinyl shop in Petoskey: There’s a new record store in downtown Petoskey. It’s called Hexagon Records and it’s one of the few places in northern Michigan devoted to selling vinyl. Michael Griggs has two record players connected to some old speakers that he found at a garage sale. His store is on Howard Street in Petoskey. It’s up stairs in a 700-square-foot space. Inside there’s a stuffed raccoon mounted to the wall, framed posters of the 70s sci-fi classic ‘Solaris,’ and tons and tons of records. Between his personal collection, what he has in storage, and what he sells at the shop—it all totals around 20,000 vinyls. One of his favorite sections is called “Difficult Concepts.” “Some of it’s like, you know, kind of like that, the new music, kind of the new classical music, like Stockhausen and stuff like that,” Griggs said. “And, you know, there’s some unusual, extremely bizarre record from Hungary.”
Nashville, TN | Nashville’s United Record Pressing celebrates 75 years: Nashville, Tennessee has long been known as “Music City.” Originally dubbed the “city of music” by Queen Victoria after a performance from the city’s world-famous Fisk Jubilee Singers, it was another half-decade before the wide reaches of WSM’s 650 AM radio signal and broadcasts of the Grand Ole Opry cemented Nashville’s place as one of the great epicenters of music and music industry. Filled with long-standing recording studios and a central location for both touring and distribution—Nashville sits nearly equidistant between New York City, Austin, Miami, and Minneapolis—this “Music City” was bolstered by another little-known factor: America’s oldest and among the largest vinyl record pressing plants, United Record Pressing, where five days a week for the last 75 years, 120+ employees cut, silver, electroplate, press, inspect and package vinyl records to be sent to every corner of the globe, all from their operation on Allied Drive in Nashville, Tennessee.
Paris, FR | Paris Vinyl Sale 2024: The giant vinyl auction at the Bastille Design Center. Attention Parisian music lovers! The Paris Vinyle Sale returns to the Bastille Design Center on Sunday, September 22, 2024, with nearly 50,000 vinyl records of all kinds at low prices. For its seventh edition, the Paris Vinyl Sale returns to the Bastille Design Center, over three floors, on September 22, 2024 from 10am to 6pm. This giant vinyl braderie is an opportunity to discover incredible nuggets in all genres, eras and formats! Nearly 50,000 vinyl records are on offer from around 50 record shops, labels and collectors. Accessible to all budgets, vinyls sell for between 2 and 10 euros, and no more! A godsend for music fans in the capital, for whomvendors, shops and DJs will be selling part of their collection. At this mass destocking event, you’ll find jazz, electronic music, rock, but also pop, funk or metal, from great artists or unknown musicians, on all formats (LPS and 45, 10″, 12″).
New Order announce ‘definitive’ box set reissue of classic album ‘Brotherhood’: It marks the fourth in a series of limited edition Definitive boxsets celebrating their classic albums. New Order have announced a deluxe box set reissue of their 1986 studio album ‘Brotherhood.’ Originally released via Factory Records, New Order’s fourth album saw them further delve into both post-punk and electronic, dividing each side of the record with two distinctively different sonic atmospheres. Now, a limited-edition box set—called ‘Brotherhood (Definitive Edition)—will celebrate the seminal album, and is set to be released via Warner Music on November 22. The reissue includes a vinyl LP of the original album, as well as two CDs—one featuring a re-mastered version of the original album and one containing nine unreleased tracks and demos from a 1985 recording session in Japan.
This trio of versatile, affordable turntables is designed for the modern vinyl fan: Lenco launches three new turntables at IFA 2024. Proving the thirst for all things vinyl is well and truly alive, Lenco is launching a trio of budget turntables at IFA 2024 with three different feature sets across three different – and very wallet-friendly – price points. First up is the Lenco LBTA-165 for the bargain price of just £199 / €219. This deck features two ultra-convenient features: Bluetooth streaming to compatible wireless speakers and headphones, and a fully automatic operation with auto start and return. This means that the tonearm will automatically cue up on the record and start playing at the press of a button, and lift and return at the end of a record side, meaning your stylus isn’t needlessly worn out if you forget to manually move the tonearm yourself. The belt-drive deck comes fitted with an Audio-Technica AT3600L moving magnet cartridge and has a built-in preamp so you can easily plug it into active speakers for a compact set-up.
