Record Store #14 – Soho, Hong Kong

In & Out Record Store

Mid-Levels,  Soho,  Central Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Ascending the Worlds Longest And Tallest Escalator, we spot a spot a window with a large poster taped to the glass, declaring, ‘We buy + sell LPs’.  Dashing down the steps at the first possible exit from the conveyer, we stumble into the shabby terraced building inwhich lies a stairwell to the shop.

On the fourth floor, we push open the door and set aside the bead curtain, and stumble across a solitary box shaped room, holding a desk and thousands of records, CDs and DVD stacked in various piles and spilling from cardboard boxes.

The small owner of the room is friendly, and has sprinkled the apartment with enough of his belongings to suggest that its not only his shop, but his home.  Incense hangs thickly in the air, and a contemporary jazz compilation blares from the speakers near the desk with the cash register.

“He probably just gets out a sleeping bag and sleeps in here” Maddi whispers to me, and I can’t help but agree.

We flick through the offerings of CDs, which consist mostly of humdrum rock releases from the likes of U2 and Muse, that leave me uninspired. However a small shelf, labelled ‘electronica’, offers a more interesting, eceltric mixture. We discover Saint Etienne’s Too Young To Die (which compiles the band’s first leg of music producing), recordings of Fatboy Slim’s Beach Boutiques from 2002 and 2003, and Aphex Twin’s double album Drukgs (which, coincenditally, is his last LP to date and an album I long for, but haven’t seen for a price I can justify).

However, it is the disaryed collection of vinyl that ticks the boxes; a big cardboard container of mixed genres priced at $15HK each (just over a £1) lies at the bottom of a dusty shelf.  One of crates seems to consist solely of US house and hip-hop, offering some old school records at a decent price. Elsewhere, stumbling across a remix EP of Underworld’s Cowgirl and Santos’ 2001 classic Camels, I decide to wake up the owner and splash out.

After-all, its not every day you can enter someone’s apartment, root through their record collection and come away with a few gems, without breaking the bank or the law.

Purchase:

Underworld – Cowgirl (Remixes) 12″ – £1.18 [Tracklisting]

Santos – Camels 12″ – £1.18 [Tracklisting]

Total Purchases:

Armand Van Helden – Ghetto Blaster – £1 [Tracklisting]

Club Azuli 1 – Mixed By Dave Piccioni – £0.48 [Tracklisting]

Club Azuli Part 2 – Mixed By Dave Piccioni – £0.79 [Tracklisting]

Chemical Brothers, The: Brothers Gonna Work It Out – £2.77 [Tracklisting]

Defected In The House – Mixed By Copyright – £0.79 [Tracklisting]

DJ Hardy Heller – Mix In Motion – £1  [Tracklisting]

DJ Shadow – The New Collection – £2.38

Elektrik 02 – Mixed By King Unique & Nubreed – £0.59 [Tracklisting]

Fabric 25 – Mixed By Carl Craig – £0.59 [Tracklisting]

Fabric 26 – Mixed By Global Communication – £0.59 [Tracklisting]

Le Le – Breakfast 12″ – £8.24 [Tracklisting]

Moby – Last Night – £0.59 [Tracklisting]

Santos – Camels 12″ – £1.18 [Tracklisting]

Samim: Flow – £1.98 [Tracklisting]

Underworld – Cowgirl (Remixes) 12″ – £1.18 [Tracklisting]

Underworld – Underneath The Radar 12″ – £8.91 [Tracklisting]

Total Spend: £33.04