Vinyl: Why Scotland’s retro revolution is not music trade spin

DAVE Harvey has a recurring nightmare. In it, a 14 yr outdated is given a present by an older relative, a spherical piece of plastic, pressed onto that are formative recordings that might  go on to form {the teenager}’s musical style for the remainder of their life.

Or not, in Dave’s nightmare.

“It’s an exquisite current to provide your nieces or nephews or sons or daughters: a report that they’ll take enjoyment from for a protracted very long time,” mentioned Harvey, proprietor of Scotland’s first vinyl urgent plant, Sea Bass.

“But my worst nightmare is giving a 14 yr outdated a birthday current of a bit of vinyl that has a problem. We are completely decided to make a product that we’re happy with, that individuals take pride from, and can hearken to time and again.”

Harvey has put his cash the place his mouth is. The 52-year-old Dubliner, and his French spouse Dominique, have self-financed Sea Bass Vinyl, the primary manufacturing facility in Scotland to make vinyl records. 

Last November they started manufacturing of their purpose-built plant exterior Tranent, East Lothian. Harvey, a former IT administration advisor, who studied course of engineering at Strathclyde University within the Nineteen Eighties, has a long-held love of vinyl ever since he first purchased Soft Cell’s single Tainted Love as an adolescent. 

After a profitable worldwide profession in IT, he and his spouse, who additionally labored in IT consultancy, determined to make a change, having recognized the much-publicised bottleneck in manufacturing. 

A pre-pandemic backlog in vinyl manufacturing had clogged the provision of important income for artists.

By the time of world pandemic lockdowns, what was caught within the bottleneck began to solidify.
Harvey mentioned: “We had been conscious of the issue that bands, together with pals of ours, had been having getting their vinyl issued. It grew to become significantly unhealthy throughout lockdown.

“There had been already a restricted variety of urgent crops. Now bands had been getting shafted. They had been having to do a break up launch and generally wouldn’t have any records to promote as merchandise in the event that they went on tour. They had no income streams, so until they may promote merchandise and live performance tickets to the followers, there can be no new music from them.”

The Cocteau Twins’ Simon Raymonde additionally performed an element within the pair’s determination to maneuver from their residence in Manchester and take a swing at a brand new enterprise in Scotland.

“The British authorities had mentioned they had been going to speculate £2.5m within the Beatles museum in Liverpool to drive music tourism. 

“Simon gave a really scathing however pointed reply mainly saying: ‘If you wish to assist the music trade in Britain, then spend that £2m on vinyl presses and that may generate an unimaginable quantity of income for everyone.’ That was the lightbulb second for me.

“It’s an trade we at all times needed to be concerned in someway,” he mentioned. “We got here up with the thought in 2021, we went to see some vinyl presses, did the enterprise case and determined to make the leap. In March 2022, we positioned a deposit on the presses and we’ve been engaged on the undertaking intensively ever since.”

Above, the fashionable marvel of arcane listening programs

A hunt for rentable premises gave technique to the couple shopping for a plot to construct their very own as a substitute.

“Our funding within the plant and the press alone wouldn’t be far off £1.5m,” mentioned Harvey. “We have some severe infrastructure, and we now have additionally sized it for 4 presses, whereas we solely have two in the intervening time. We can scale up if we have to or wish to.

“It’s all basically self-financed. We introduced in some asset-finance on the finish to assist handle cash-flow and we’ve had one grant from Scottish Enterprise for a component of renewables.”

The sale of vinyl records is on an upward trajectory at a time when the worldwide crucial to reduce the influence of plastics on the atmosphere is past negotiation. Songwriters write songs about local weather change and launch them on bits of plastic or on streaming websites hosted by energy-hungry servers. 

American troubadour Father John Misty spears this hypocrisy in his wry track Now I’m Learning To Love The War, with its lyrics: ‘attempt to not assume a lot in regards to the actually staggering quantity of oil that it takes to make a report’.

Worldwide, round 180 million LPs are produced a yr. It’s a conundrum the Harveys – who intention to supply 15,000 records per week – have addressed from the off, with plans to collaborate with Evolution Music, an organization main the way in which in manufacturing plant-based LPs.

“We have made an enormous funding in sustainability,” he mentioned. “All our vitality is Carbon belief licensed. We are investing closely in wind generators and photo voltaic panel in order that we are able to generate 50% of our electrical energy on website.

“It’s inevitably energy-intensive, this course of. But these items have been massive differentiators for us.”
While the corporate have a global focus, they’re eager to forge robust bonds with Scottish artists and labels.

Fittingly, the primary report off Sea Bass’s press was by Scottish rock veteran Fish. Last Night From Glasgow, one in every of Scotland’s most profitable report labels, and Edinburgh-based Indicator Records, are already doing enterprise with Sea Bass.

For singer Jerry Burns, whose self-titled 1992 report will likely be re-released this month with new bonus materials on vinyl by Last Night From Glasgow, Sea Bass symbolize a sea-change she couldn’t have fathomed first time round. 

“To have been somebody who was obliged as everybody was then to take most issues we did to London, Paris and New York for mastering and urgent – which we liked – being among the many first artists to be pressed on the first urgent plant in Scotland is definitely extremely shifting,” she mentioned. 

“They’ve been meticulously perfectionist of their strategy to the nuanced, intricate musical breath and element of the urgent.”

Harvey has discovered tips on how to do the urgent himself, and, though he plans to extend their employees of 5 within the close to future, he jokingly exhibits off the marks on his fingers to show the “actual work” of his new job.

“I went and labored in The Vinyl Lab, a urgent plant in Nashville, for a couple of weeks final September,” he mentioned. “They had been actually beneficiant, permitting me to study from essentially the most skilled vinyl press operators on the earth. Our ambition is to make use of individuals pretty, scale the enterprise up, make nice records at a good value and turn out to be a part of the infrastructure of the Scottish music trade so we’re a go-to provider for individuals who wish to get records pressed.”

All that, and the accountability of serving to a era of 14 yr olds right into a lifelong love affair, sparked by the primary thrill of placing a needle on a Sea Bass report. 

REAL WORLD STORES WITH SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE

KEITH Ingram was as soon as accountable for the cassette wall at HMV in Dundee.

“I used to be the tape purchaser. I had a 25-foot wall of cassettes,” mentioned Ingram, now the proprietor of Assai Records, which has branches in Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow. “Then I grew to become singles purchaser after which assistant supervisor.”

These days, his store’s partitions are layered with vinyl.

Ingram opened an impartial report retailer in Stirling within the 2000s – Hear That Sound – earlier than efficiently switching to online-only gross sales for a decade. In 2015, he ventured again onto the excessive avenue, opening a report store below the title of Assai in Broughty Ferry.

“It’s a music time period. My daughters play brass, and we noticed it there,” he mentioned.
 

The phrase interprets as ‘very’ and, such a superlative appears apt for an trade which final yr noticed the best figures since 1990, with nearly six million gross sales, in line with trade physique BPI.

Assai sells records and turntables to play them on. The shops additionally maintain dwell occasions. Last week, they staged a listening get together of their Glasgow store to mark the launch of Green Day’s new LP. They’ve booked The Snuts and Cast to play in-store classes at their shops in coming weeks, with the likes of The View having executed so already.

“Our gross sales are made up of quite a lot of Scottish artists but in addition pop artists like Taylor Swift. It’s younger individuals shopping for records which can be the inspiration of our enterprise – the 16 to 25 yr olds are those actually driving the market.

“I bear in mind a sure report store saying they’d by no means inventory Oasis,” mentioned Ingram. “But there’s no place for that kind of snobbery in profitable retail. There ought to be one thing for everybody.”