“In Oxford there were three record shops when I was growing up… Avid, Polar Bear, and Vinyl Frontier.”
“I would spend a huge amount of time at all of them, even though I could rarely afford to buy any records. I would hunt down any Warp Records stuff I could – I had a borderline obsession with that label and their output in the mid to late nineties.
I can’t remember the first record I bought, but I do remember a little collection that me and my brothers inherited off my mum. The two records from that collection that I remember really well were Hunky Dory by David Bowie and The Hissing of Summer Lawns by Joni Mitchell. I certainly listened to those a LOT in my early teens, and they remain two of my favorite artists to this day.
I went to university in Bristol and there were a whole load more record shops there I would take out a whole afternoon to scouring the shops. One particular amazing find I remember was a Devo 7 inch – I forget which song – with a poster in it. That poster is now proudly framed in my studio in all its absurd glory.
I only buy second hand vinyl now… I have all the new music I want to listen to digitally, but older things I like to have on vinyl… also the more esoteric and unsual ends of my music taste is mostly represented within my record collection.
A few favorites of mine are a Hungarian prog-folk band from the late ’70s called Vasmolom and an early Joan Baez record, forget the name, which have both been played more than anything else I have.”
—Hugo Manuel
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