Vinyl and the New Age of Analogue
Britain’s Financial Times take a look at a London shop whose business is booming because of the resurgence in vinyl.
In a small, dimly lit studio perched on the edge of London’s Westway flyover, Pete Hutchison is listening closely. Very closely. Not that there is any need to strain. Beethoven’s Symphony No 9 cascades like an avalanche from a rotund pair of speakers; explosive timpani pound the air of the soundproofed room into its fabric-lined walls.Volume is unlikely to make much difference to Hutchison’s trained ear. He’s something of an aural specialist, producing hyper-authentic pressings of rare mid-20th-century classical vinyl records.
Releases by The Electric Recording Company, Hutchison’s production outfit, are valuable: a volume of Bach’s unaccompanied violin sonatas by Johanna Martzy sells for £300; it’s £2,500 for a seven-LP box set of Mozart à Paris with conductor Fernand Oubradous. The cost, he says, is a result of the time and effort that goes into the manufacture of the albums: this is more than reproduction, this is replication down to the last audiovisual detail. “If you think of an audiophile as an outpatient at a psychiatric ward then us, in here with this equipment, we’re sectioned,” he says.
