Long Live Vinyl

These are challenging times.” So says Radiohead guitarist Ed O’Brien in our interview this month as he embarks on a new solo career as EOB with debut album Earth. It’s a universal sentiment, one which you may already be beginning to tire of hearing as the frightening swirl of news events gathers pace. Life is, I’m sure you’ve noticed, a bit strange at the moment. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed our daily routines in ways we couldn’t perceive just months ago. By the time you read these words, things will undoubtedly have moved on significantly since I wrote them, self-isolated at home. I’ve just said goodbye to Iain from Longwell Records, after he dropped offan album. Leaving it at the door, he retreated to the safety of the end of…

Record shops were bracing themselves for the impact from the COVID-19 pandemic as we went to press, with the message loud and clear in the wake of the postponement of Record Store Day until 20 June: support your local shop. Record Store Day organisers were left with no choice but to put the event back by two months as social distancing and self-isolation measures came into effect. The outbreak has left shops uncertain over their future, with high-street footfall plummeting, but many stressing that they remain open for business – even if that means online or personally delivering to customers. A spokesperson for Record Store Day said: “Given the challenges now facing the independent record store community, we urge music fans to continue to support their local record shop in…

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My new album is… called Inner Song, the music was written and recorded over a 35-day period. With this album, I allowed the ideas to flow more freely. On the previous release, I would try to produce and sculpt the sounds before I was able to let the idea fully flourish, which creates something else, but with this one the ideas were fully respected and formed. Then I went on and produced/automated everything within an inch of its life, which is fun for me! he sessions… took place between Daniel Avery’s London studio and a studio in Margate for vocal recording/final production sessions. Both studios are very close to water, either the river or the sea, and sub-aqua elements seem to flow through the sound of my music. I worked…

Birmingham has produced some of the UK’s foremost reggae bands – Steel Pulse, UB40 and The Beat among them – and they (and pretty much everyone else interested in Jamaican music) shopped at Don Christie Records over the three decades-plus it was open. Don Christie opened as a specialist Blue Beat shop in the mid-1960s. With the UK label Blue Beat being the main source of ska, people often referred to the new dance music as “blue beat”. Don Christie was a white man who embraced the new sound and never looked back, continuing to ride the changes in black music, specifically Jamaican. ‘The Reggae Specialist’ was painted across the shop’s red and white frontage. Originally on Ladypoole Road, Balsall Heath, Don Christie’s was a long, rectangular shop. Those who…

Assuming I were to drop dead tomorrow, which let’s face it in the current state of apocalypse wouldn’t be such a surprise, I’d still feel that I had lived a pretty charmed life. Being in a band wiThelizabeth Fraser for 14 years, before developing the roster at Bella Union for the last 23, has fuelled this old man’s tank many times over, and then add working with Scott Walker for his BBC Proms celebration in 2017 and I have more stored reserves than I think I will ever need. However, back in 1997, before Bella Union had even released its first album, an opportunity arose for me to work on a record by a man who, like Scott Walker, was blessed with a voice that was once-in-a-generation. It was a…