Welcome to Issue 06 of You Dig?, your monthly low-down on all that’s cool at the intersection of music, physical media, people and photography.
This month, we put virtual pen to paper, with DJ Scribe curating the cultural choices and Soundpapered providing the artwork.
Soundpapered, the alter ego of British-American artist Rachel D. Abrams, has created some truly memorable cover art for You Dig?, above. Famously, art has no rules—but not so with Soundpapered. For a decade, Rachel has been sketching musicians while watching them play live, using only pen on paper or finger-and-thumb on a dark-mode phone screen. It’s spontaneous; absolutely no working off photos later.
Rachel’s cover art selection features (L-R) Thundercat, Kamasi Washington, Rickey Washington, Walter Smith III, Esperanza Spalding, David Virelles, and Casey Benjamin. Want to own a copy for your record-room wall? A limited-edition print of thisYou Dig? artwork is available to buy on the Dust & Grooves website. Rachel’s also working on a book, The Soundpapered Album, due later this year in our favorite 12-inch square format. Follow Rachel’s work on Instagram and tune into her companion radio show, Papered Sound, on Love Will Save The Day FM.
And so, on to the words. Long-time friend (and previous interviewee) of Dust & Grooves, Ben Goldfarb, is this month’s guest selector for DG Curates. As DJ Scribe, Ben is a veteran of the New York music scene, and founded the laptop-free ‘I Love Vinyl’ parties. His curations here are as diverse as his DJ sets (which you can check out on Soho Radio).
One of the things I love about editing You Dig? is the new music it opens my ears to each month, and I’m grateful to Ben for the intro to the superb Ethiopian quartet, Admas. But there’s plenty more to feast on besides, so get stuck into Ben’s recommendations below.
The world’s a crazy place right now, but music has always got your back. And hey, if you’re in the northern hemisphere, things are just warming up…
Rich Headland
Resident Editor
Vinyl Quotes
“I want to find out who made this song and that arrangement. I love every aspect of digging! It opens you to an infinite world of new places and sounds.”
–Mary G
Dust & Grooves Curates
by DJ Scribe
I’m Ben Goldfarb, also known as DJ Scribe, and I am honored to be curating this edition of You Dig?
I am a DJ and record collector, and occasional writer, from NYC. I have been DJing and collecting since 1990 and, 35 years later, I am as moved and motivated to discover “new” music as I ever was.
Beatific Backstories
Heroes and Villains: Long-form interviews that caught my eye
I love the in-depth wonky interviews on Rick Beato’s YouTube channel because they are really about making music. I especially like his interviews with session musicians who played on tons of classic records. Some favorites: Steve Lukather, Steve Gadd, Bernard Purdie and Michael McDonald, a rockstar with the ego of a session player.
A Streetside Steal
Economy Class. Amazing finds from the $1 bin
There’s a photo of this in my original Dust & Grooves interview but I didn’t tell the story. It’s Blue Rhythm Combo’s Magumba. There used to be a guy who lived around 97th St. & Broadway and he would sometimes come out to sell books and records on the street for $1. One day I was flipping through his box and I saw it. This was before it was reissued and I didn’t know what it was, but I knew. Didn’t even look it up until I got home.
Let The Spirit Soothe You
Hello, I Love You: Labels we dig
Still in their infancy as a label, Spiritmuse Records, based in London, has been killing it with consistently high-quality, mostly spiritual-jazz-related releases. They heavily feature the great Kahil El’ Zabar, and share responsibility with the artist himself for the revitalization of his career.
Slip Into a World
The Out Crowd. Music x Art
Nora Chipaumire is a genius performance artist who creates epic pieces with music, dance, DJ culture, theater, spoken word, and more. Her works are often in progress, often interactive, can last up to six hours, and at their best are indescribable and life changing. I never miss her work when she comes to NYC.
Green Trails
Dig Deeper. Get lost in music.
There’s no such thing as a boring Scritti Politti interview. Like this older one. Or this newer one. I was a huge fan in the ’80s without knowing anything about Green Gartside’s intellectual / philosophical project. But I felt the music and it led me, unknowingly, to so much that I came to love—Chaka Khan, Roger Troutman, Miles Davis.
Soho Promo
Plug Me In, Scotty! Props to the DG community and beyond.
Shameless self-promotion time. I have a radio show on London’s Soho Radio. Lately my shows are taken from my live DJ gigs at places like Eavesdrop, Upstairs at Public Records, Night Moves. Earlier shows were recorded in-studio and involved (a tiny amount of) me talking. Soho is also available on DAB.
Heroin Chic
Books Are Magic. Music books that are not Dust & Grooves.
One of my favorite book about music in recent years is Nile Rodgers’ beautifully written Le Freak: An Upside Down Story of Family, Disco, and Destiny. His description of his childhood experience of his bohemian parents’ lively house parties going quiet and frozen when everyone’s heroin hit is unforgettable.
Scribe’s Five
We Love Lists. Top 5 records on my deck this month
Luther Vandross – “Better Love”
The background vocals in the chorus have an unusual amount of feeling and intimacy.
Chanté Moore – “Love’s Taken Over”
Perfect ’90s R&B. Real singing and massive production.
Sybil – “Don’t Make Me Over”
Ditto but ’80s.
Millie Scott – “Ev’ry Little Bit”
Songwriting and production.
John Klemmer – “Magnificent Madness”
Title says it all.
New/Old Horizons
New Releases. Catching my eye right now.
Recently discovered this band for myself because of a reissue on Frederiksberg Records: Admas – Sons Of Ethiopia. The music is an Ethiopian-American diasporic fusion of traditional Ethiopian keyboard jazz, with ’80’s drum machines. It’s filtered through the generation after the masters, with one foot in the past and another in the “present”.
The Real King
Heroes and Villains: Long-form interviews that caught my eye
Anyone who cares about music, history and justice should watch the documentary about Little Richard, I Am Everything. This is coming from someone who was mainly ignorant about his story and how important he is to the history of western pop music. Inspiring, tragic, and maddening.
Recovery Sunday
Let’s kill more time and reassure ourselves with high-brow viral scrolling
I’m mostly not loving anything social media viral these days and try to stay away from it. But Mysta Crooks’ narrations of Whimsical Skedaddling videos on IG help stave off existential dread for a few transcendent seconds.
I also love voceux.voceux, an account that isolates and solos the vocals in live performance videos.
Our Cover Artwork
Soundpapered #01
This month’s extra cool and intuitive artwork comes from our long-time friend Rachel D. Abrams, AKA Soundpapered. There’s #01, and there’s also #02 coming up and an entire book in the making.
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By now, we’re sure you can see how much love goes into Dust & Grooves. It’s a pure passion project, and Eilon has worked super hard to keep it an independent endeavor—always completely ad-free. This has been going for over a decade, and in that time Dust & Grooves has seen the building of a genuinely great community that celebrates record collecting, and one that has a huge love of music. We absolutely love to see it, and it means a lot to us.
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Dust & Grooves Books
Order Now.
Dust & Grooves Vol. 2
Further Adventures in Record Collecting – First Limited Edition
Renowned photographer and publisher Eilon Paz returns after the successful release of Dust & Grooves: Adventures In Record Collecting. For Volume Two, Paz highlights the planet’s biggest proponents of vinyl collecting, bridging stunning images with extensive interviews, revealing the motives and backstories behind the global vinyl community. Ten years after the first release, with vinyl sales skyrocketing and a booming popularity among Gen-Zs, Volume Two digs deeper than its predecessor, underscoring gorgeous collections from astute everyday enthusiasts to venerated DJs, musicians, and producers. Veteran journalist and editor David Ma handles the editorial end to this sequel, making Volume Two a cultural leader in the field, expertly accentuating the world’s unifying devotion to vinyl.
Tailor made for lovers of world-class photography, novice and expert collectors, and music obsessives alike.
Foreword by Prince Paul
Includes interviews with A-Trak, DaM Funk, Quantic, DJ Spinna, Kid Koala, Don Letts, Andy Votel, Mayer Hawthorne and more.
First limited edition of 4000 copies.
Ships locally from 5 main warehouses. US, Canada, Europe (Belgium), UK and Australia.
Portables
A Visual & Historical Exploration of 222 Vintage Portable Turntables
A 470-page hardcover book featuring highly detailed photos and comprehensive research on 222 portable vinyl record players, sourced from the collections of Paola Puente, Kalle Aldis Laar, Eric Cohen, Bas Bogerd and Mark Cruz.
Once considered little more than a children’s plaything or a grade school accessory, the portable record player has gained newfound respect in recent years. Whatever they may lack in high-end audio fidelity, battery-powered turntables more than make up for it with their convenience and ease of use. Just ask any crate digger: a cult favorite portable like the Columbia GP-3 or the Audio-Technica Sound Burger (or even the Fisher-Price Big Bird model) can be an absolutely essential companion on an all-day vinyl hunt.
Portables features lavish, detailed photos of 222 portable turntables from around the world, including rare record players from Japan, the UK, Germany and the Soviet Union as well as the USA, and ranging in vintage from the 1920s to the early twenty-first century. They’re all gorgeously captured here by photographer Eilon Paz, with accompanying commentary from music historian Dan Epstein.
Whether you’re a hardcore turntable collector, an aficionado of cool vintage audio gear, a student of industrial design, or a vinyl lover curious about the wild world of portable record players, Portables will make your head spin—and will soon have you scouring thrift stores, antique malls, and even your grandma’s attic for the portable record player of your dreams.
Dust & Grooves: Vol. 1 & 2
Deluxe Limited Box Set
A deluxe slipcase box set of Dust & Grooves Vol. 1 (10th Anniversary Edition) & Vol. 2.
Includes:
4mm cardboard slipcase with foil stamping and blind deboss
The Dust & Grooves Sleeveface Poster
