Ever noticed London hasn’t had a proper drum & bass record shop since Black Market records? What London does have are excellent stocks in record stores, supporting new drum & bass. Not to mention UK garage, house and techno. Reckless Records, Phonica, Flashback, Rye Wax and Sister Ray are a few of those that spring to mind.
But what happened to that social experience you used to find in specialist stores? When dance music record shops were a spot for the heads to hang out, check the latest releases, network with DJs and share knowledge. Surely London is missing a trick?
With your support, Chris Dexta and Lewis Sicknote are the DJs and label owners about to change that. Over the last ten years, these selectas have been dedicated to buying, selling, making and releasing underground music.
And they recognise the need for more record store community spirit in London: a physical space – outside the rave – for electronic music lovers to dig the crates, meet like-minded people and share new tunes.
That’s why Chris and Lewis are on a mission to make a new record store in Deptford. As a cultural hub for underground dance music, it’ll support all the artists and labels you know and love – as well as up and coming talent.
Disc World will be the only record shop in South East London to focus on new releases in underground D&B, garage, house and techno. It’ll also be the new headquarters to their successful dubplate cutting venture, 1-800-Dubplate.
Producers, DJs and record enthusiasts will be able to walk in and cut whatever tunes they want onto dubplate. On top of that, there’ll be a schedule of workshops, covering everything from learning to DJ through to how to get your music out there.
Chris comes with a wealth of industry knowledge. He’s worked as a label manager and talent scout at Hospital Records and Med School. He’s been on the design/editorial team at DJ Mag. Oh, and he owns Diffrent Music and co-founded Clashmouth (the D&B record market at House of Vans, London).
Lewis Sicknote has over seven years of experience distributing dance records to the UK’s top independent record stores. He’s also a trained sound design and audio engineer. And if that wasn’t enough, he’s been DJing since 2001 and owns record labels Stereocilia, PAWS and Goldman Records.
To give Disc World a successful launch, Chris and Lewis need your help kickstarting the project. Your money will go towards the down payment on the property, stocking the shop, and building the interior.
Pledges can range from anything from £5 and up. Whatever you donate will be in exchange for special edition rewards. Think stickers, garms, records and dubplates (obviously), and much more.
In a nutshell, the underground music community needs to work together to keep specialist record stores alive. And isn’t it more fun to create an environment to spread the music, rather than keep it to ourselves Check out Disc World’s Kickstarter page for full details of how you can get involved.
Words: Verity Raphael