Events

Phonica Record Store Day 2019!

Posted on 18th April 2019

On Saturday 13th April, thousands of record collectors, music lovers and partygoers headed to Soho in aid of international Record Store Day. Here’s a rundown of what we got up to here at Phonica.

So Record Store Day is always by far the busiest day of the year for us, and many other record shops we’re sure, but its no wonder considering ‘some’ of the limited releases on offer – but for Phonica its also down to the amazing name DJs that come to play sets all day long in support of the cause.

We always start off gently upstairs in the already busy shop where our normal in-store events happen – our good friend and (only just) ex-colleague Souhail Zaatari aka Soho aka ‘The Arab’ from The White Man & The Arab kicked things off in fine style, playing a vinyl only Dub and Reggae set, mostly 7”s – Dubwise sounds.

Next up was Nabihah Iqbal aka Throwing shade, spinning what was probably the most eclectic set of the day – sounds as far ranging as ambient, indie, jazz and electronics from all over the globe. Gilles Peterson popped in to check her set and had a good chat.

Finally, Parris of Idle Hands and Trilogy Tapes fame took to the decks with an almost indescribable set of modern obscurities, bass pressure and ambient textures washing over a now packed shop.

Eventually, we relieved the pressure in the shop and opened the doors to Vinyl Factory’s huge space downstairs – a few hundred punters streamed down to see the first of our secret lineup. Opening for us we were honoured to have DJ Fett Burger grace the turntables, bringing us the chilled but funky disco vibes of Sade, Deodato, and Fantom – our good friend Rami from Fabric ably bringing his MC skills on the mic.

A quick changeover brought us legendary digger/dealer/deejay Nick The Record. Many upbeat soulful boogie and disco rarities dropped one after another! A lot unknown to us but we noticed Nick’s own mix of Andromeda Orchestra doing damage! Buy now the free beer bar from our good friends at Old Blue Last was in full swing.

Up next two of the hottest young talents did us proud with an exclusive B2B set! Fabio Monesi and Harrison BDP had never met before let alone played b2b – but you wouldn’t know it! Huge disco, house and breakbeat bombs came quickly! Todd Terry’s remix of P.M Dawn, Disk’s ‘Acid Rain’, Midland’s ‘’Final Credits’ and Tom Middleton’s massive mashup of Kylie/Chicken Lips/New Order slayed the crowd.

Detroit In Effect jumps on the decks and also the mic to everyone’s surprise, with a punishing fast set of jacking ghetto house and Detroit electro! Sending many into raptures, and some back to the bar to cool off with a beer! A first drop of ‘The Bell’s’ happens.

Next up a great customer of ours squeezes through the crowd – Skream – he’s immediately spotted and cheers are heard. He drops a consistently euphoric set of 80’s synth pop and electro anthems – Company B, Pet Shop Boys, Electra, Suzy Q, finishing with Krystal Klear’s recent banger ‘Euphoric Dreams’.

The penultimate set of the day came from Shanti Celeste and our own Danielle, who along with Souhail gave us 10 loyal years of service in the shop, we miss them already! Shanti and Danielle brought forth an onslaught of killer cutting edge Bristol bass and otherworldly Electro sounds! Shop favourite ‘Sharevari’ by Anumberofnames, La Synthesis and Kasper Marott continued to pummel the crowd.

We really didn’t know whether our last act and headliner would be here, it was unconfirmed 15 minutes before his set… A dream came true for us on this crazy day. We were truly blessed and honoured to have such a legendary producer headline for us! One of the 3 pioneers of Techno, the ‘Originator’ of Electro, Detroit’s one and only – Juan Atkins aka Model 500 aka Cybotron aka Infiniti! Juan took us a journey through cutting edge electro and techno to huge retro anthems like ‘Egypt, Egypt’ by Egyptian Lover, Kraftwerk’s ‘Numbers’, Afrika Bambatta’s ‘Planet Rock’, a second outing of ‘The Bells’ and his own seminal classics ‘Time Space Transmat’ ‘Clear’ and an encore of ‘I Wanna Be There’.

Check out the official after-movie below. Shot and edited by Sophia Ongley.

We would like to thank our sponsors Junction 2 Festival, Old Blue Last Beer and TPI Sound, all of the record shoppers who queued up since the early hours, all of the dancers, our photographers and videographers Fran Hales and Sophia Ongley, FACT Magazine for the live stream and, of course, all of our guest DJs and MCs; Skream, Detroit In Effect, Shanti Celeste, Danielle, DJ Fett Burger, Nick The Record, Harrison BDP, Fabio Monesi, Nabihah Iqbal, Soho, Rami and Parris… not forgetting the extra special closing set from the originator of techno, Juan Atkins!