How important is the specialised trade for you in times of the internet and mP3 as a musician as well as a customer and music fan?

For me, there is still nothing that beats going into a store and searching for what catches your eye or seeing something that you’ve been hearing about and meaning to listen to. Flicking through the records on the shelf and „touching the music“. Maybe this is because I grew up in a time where that was how you discovered music.

What meaning do record stores have for the music culture in general and for your music in particular?

I want to make great albums, where the artwork and visual presentation is as considered as the music itself…I love exploring interesting record sleeves and artwork and that’s what record stores allow you to do. I used to love listening to full tracks at listening stations in record shops and I would always end up buying it. That experience is lost online and a whole visual, 3-dimensional aspect of „records“ is being lost in the internet age.

When and where did you buy your first records or CDs and what memories do you connect with record stores?

I used to buy vinyl records from Oxfam (a second hand shop in London), when I was 8. My first vinyl was „Under Pressure“ by Queen & David Bowie. My best record store memory is standing in a record store in London around a listening post with my friends hearing Radiohead’s OK Computer for the first time…its the first and last time I listened to a whole album in a shop! We all bought a copy of course.

What are your current CD tips and which musicians and albums should not be missing from any CD shelve?

current tips would include, Dan Black, Kings Of Leon, M83, Grizzly Bear and White Lies as well as Gary Go of course.

Ultimate CD Tips would be:

1-Pink Floyd ‚Dark Side Of The Moon‘

2-Michael Jackson ‚Off The Wall‘

3-Radiohead ‚OK Computer‘

4-Stina Nordenstam ‚This Is‘

5-Phillip Glass ‚The Hours‘

6-David Bowie ‚Hunky Dory‘

7-Death Cab For Cutie ‚Plans‘

8-The Beatles ‚White Album‘

9-Nine Inch Nails ‚And all that would have been‘

10-Miles David ‚My Kind of Blue‘