Soundbytes 2
Posted by sideshowjudy on November 1, 2008
There is always something nice about travelling overseas and over the years, I have established somewhat of a travel pattern. Cities warrant that I visit good independent bookstores, sip cappucino in a student hangout joint that spins music from death cab for cutie and the likes of other indie, electro and downtempo beats. but a favorite walkabout always almost includes a trip to an independant record store, speaking with the counter staff, who almost always stink of musical superiority, have wild hair and wear tees with slogans like “Slacker went home.”
After much searching, I walked about an hour or so through college town in Toronto and ended up at Soundscapes, a small independent outfit at 572 College Street. The store was dark, with muted lighting and of course with music that is rather specifically classified. It smelled of record imperialism. I like! One of the major difficulties about operating a music store is inventory. Music sales and distribution is incredibly low margin (especially post rent and having to deal with chronic slack-jawed staff whose real job is recording his next demo and stacking cds is just like his lunch job.) Choices need to be made about music selection, and what one carries and there is a fine balance between “no, we don’t carry boyzone, please go to hmv for that” versus “no, since death cab for cutie appeared in Time magazine, we now refer you to hmv.” One has to keep constant count on the “yes we have these in stock” vs “no, this is for hmv.” and mind you, that’s a key performance indicator right there that is hard to beat. And there is also the indie vs the ultimate-too-too-indie. Like a Beirut recording (which is acceptable indie and appears on reviews by Pitchfork and therefore of celeb status now) vs the (dude in his basement with his 4 track. “you gotta listen to this shit, cos it’s da shit. you know what i mean? like…no one has ever heard of him man…”)
Having worked my teenage ass off at a record store, I can tell you, we used to have where we all FOUGHT, with claws out, about what cds get onto the next order sheet. Of course, there would also be a sales tracker at the back of our minds to see whose albums ordered rendered the most sales. However, in all honesty, a bunch of indie records could never outsell Rickie Martin, so the KPI tracking was kind of a dud effort really.
In any case, after rummaging through the best of electro, lo-fi (only in an indie store does lo-fi get its own shelf), and simply just…rock - here is what i emerged, victorious with:
1. Morgan Geist - Double Time Home
2. Iron and Wine - The Shepard’s Dog
3. Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours
4. Santo Gold - Top Ranking Santo Gold, A Diplo Dub
5. Lambchop - Oh (Ohio) — beat sufjan stevens to the next american state huh?
6. Junior Boys - Body Language Six mixed by Junior Boys
7. Ron Sexsmith - Exit Strategy Soul
8. Sandro Perri - Tiny Mirrors (I have to support canadian as a result of being a tourist guest)
9. Santo Gold - reminds me of M.I.A but better and more rude electro
10. Donkey - really great. what can i say, kicks the tits off killers right out. they even got cute female vocalist.
There may have been 1 more record - but i forget. In any case, this is a pretty bombass list.
Oh and for those that wish to survive a recommendations-from-the-elitist-staff-at-indie-record-store, just look for the skinny, nerdy dudes. they are often pretty darn laidback and beta in disposition, so you probably wont get too much crap to annouce that your last purchase was The Killers debut effort. 
