“My first record is a terribly cringe worthy confession to me now. I must have been 10 or so and my Mum bought me a second-hand recording of John Rutter’s “Gloria.” As this probably isn’t the norm for this site, a bit of background is probably needed.”
“I began my music education aged around 7 when I was entered by my mother into the Dunblane Cathedral choir. This was really the glory period of my music life as I was very lucky to have an excellent Treble voice that took me to sing at such hallowed classical music venues as Kings College in Cambridge and even once as a soloist for the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.
My Dad as always had a very extensive classical music collection on vinyl which made up the majority of my childhood relationship with vinyl. I remember the exciting pregnant pause between placing the needle and the soft noise before the first notes of a piece. I think that sense of anticipation and the feeling of listening to music at home being an event is something that’s sadly not a part of many people’s lives in the MP3 age. As with most things in life easy access tends to lead to a lack of reverence, and I think music is suffering from that now.
I didn’t really get into ‘popular’ music till I was around 14 when I moved into a boarding school and my friends started introducing me to things like Radiohead, The Smashing Pumpkins, and Ben Folds Five. I didn’t have an LP player but I certainly found a romantic connection with collectable CDs of which I still own a few.
My vinyl experiences as an adult began when my friend Andy decided to buy a very expensive hi-fi system and an LP player and wanted me to lend my musical ears to give a second opinion on the buying decision. We had to decide on a small list of LPs to take along for testing. I stole a couple of my parents classical LPs including Wagner’s Das Rheingold and we popped into Glasgow centre to buy a couple of others, the one of which I remember was Dinosaur Jr’s Where You Been. The whole thing was a great experience and one I hope to replicate when I can raise enough spare pennies for my own sexy hi-fi.
I have to admit I’m not a super passionate vinyl fan. I like vinyl, but in an age where a lot of music is recorded digitally anyway, I’m not sure what a huge difference converting it to analogue really makes. I think an interesting alternative would be for more bands to try a mix of their album in 5.1 surround as that’s now a much more common home speaker set-up than it was.
What I do love about the idea of people collecting vinyl though, is that recapturing of respect and romance for music! To have a living room filled with reminders of the sounds that mean so much to you, that can’t be replicated by a hard drive in a drawer. I would love to see a growth in the vinyl revival so that people will again take home a new LP and sit eyes closed alone in their living room with that gentle whir, and the sense of anticipation that something magical is about to happen.”
—Duncan Sutherland
Turning Plates’ self-released debut album, The Shouting Cave, partly funded by Creative Scotland, is available on 22nd September 2014.
