Michael McGregor highlights North Brooklyn’s 7″ vinyl resurgence.
Analog and lacking mobility, it’s a wonder the 45rpm piece of wax still has a place in the 21st century.
Sure, there is a vinyl resurgence, as witnessed at local shops like Academy Records, Permanent Records, Eat Records and Sound Fix Records, but even in a world where listeners are gravitating toward the warmth of vinyl, the 7” single is still somewhat of an anomaly. Once used to showcase a bands premier tracks for radio play, over time, the 7” grew to symbolize the small community that created, stood behind and proliferated D-I-Y culture. Now, more than ever, the 7” is a symbol of community, a personal piece of memorabilia, a souvenir of days gone by, a relic amongst digitally encoded pieces of data.
With the ghosts of bedroom labels past in their blood, Zach Pollakoof and Brian Kerr have joined the army of bedroom wax provocateurs and are fighting to help bring back an era where singles clubs and D-I-Y releases felt like notes from likeminded friends from a place far off, yet near to ones heart.
Not only a way to promote new acts, Pollakoof and Kerr, better known as the proprietors of two syllable Records, a locally owned and operated bedroom record label, are using the medium to bring back an era when the act of placing the needle on the groove of the A side was a religious ceremony. two syllables understands the power of the micro-distribution, issuing 7” records in limited batches of 500, making the listener feel amongst a small group of privileged people able to experience the wonder of sound embedded in a circular piece of wax. Like any good label, all releases are numbered with loving hands at home, and fans are encouraged to plot their location on a 7” map of the world, providing a temporal relationship for listeners around the world. Of course, the interconnected nature of the World Wide Web makes this possible, connecting fans in Tokyo, Dublin, Australia, Glasgow and Riverview, Michigan, letting lonely kids in their bedroom know that there are others out their who feel the same way they do about music, and urging them to create their own art and share it with the world, albeit in small, handmade copies, personal poems for selected friends.
Keeping with their do-it-yourself roots, two syllable has released records by lo-fi bedroom wunderkind That Ghost, and BK-SF sound project New Villager, both of whom have been garnering blog buzz, as well as some love from traditional rock outlets. While two syllable is enjoying some success, it’s still all about community, best exemplified by two syllable’s next release, the Magic Tape 7” by friend and fellow Brooklynite Bell (aka Olga Bell), whose majestic pop is as splendid as a brand new 64 color box of Crayola crayons.
Interested parties can track and purchase releases at the label’s website.
Photo: Bill Pearis
