By Legendary UK DJ and producer Dave Seaman has spent a year downsizing his record collection – with three great results. Firstly, Dave fell back in love with vinyl during the process. Secondly, he’s selling a fair chunk of his collection on Discogs. Last but not least, Dave is now promising more vinyl releases on his Selador Records label.
Stuck at home during the Covid-19 lockdown, Dave embarked on the long overdue task of organising his record collection. “It’s a job I’d been putting off for years just due to the sheer size of it,” admitted Dave. “Even though I’d had a couple of clear-outs before, I still had over 10,000 records. I knew I could probably shed at least half of them to get down to the real classics, the ones that held special memories for me.
“I figured that 5000 was still a healthy collection and would be more manageable. It would basically fill an entire wall of my office and serve as a constant source of inspiration.”
Judgement
The Selador boss played every record in his collection one last time before deciding its fate. “I felt each one deserved one last play before judgement, which also gave me a chance to check everything for possible samples. I ended up recording over 1000 loops, kick drums, one shots, vocal snippets and more.
“It was a long process. It took me the best part of a year to get through everything. Not only was it cathartic, as just about every piece of vinyl holds a memory in some shape or form, it made me really reconnect with the physical format and my boyhood love of collecting records.”
Renewed Bond
Vinyl sales are at their highest since the mid-’90s. Latest figures reveal that 4.8 million vinyl records were sold in the UK last year – 10% more than in 2019.
“This renewed bond with my collection reinforced how much of an emotional attachment there is to vinyl as opposed to the cold functionality of the MP3 or virtual world of streaming,” said Dave. “I never really trawl through old Dropbox folders in the Cloud of the best tracks from a particular year, but I do really enjoy grouping records together into years, genres, labels or whatever.
“It didn’t take long before I’d completely got the bug again and started buying new records. Having not really bought much vinyl for over a decade, there are some glaring gaps that need filling but the joy of collecting is back. The postman turning up with a new record and the whole opening and playing ritual is a little treat I really look forward to.
New Vinyl Feeling
“I don’t think this will turn into me carrying boxes of records around the world when I DJ live just yet, but never say never. But as a label, Selador will try to put out more and more vinyl moving forward. It’s a tough market with tight margins but sometimes you just gotta do things for the love of it. And you can’t beat that new vinyl feeling.”
Selador’s new vinyl release is the Dave Seaman ‘Remixes’ EP. It features reworks of recent releases by Rodriguez Jr., Whitesquare, Doctor Dru and a previously unreleased remix by Damon Jee. It’s out now at all good retail emporiums or directly through the Selador website or Bandcamp page.
Oh, and you can browse through the records Dave is letting go through his Discogs page, which he’s adding to all the time. Happy hunting!
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