Sounds of the Universe, London

Sitting in the heart of London’s Soho, record shop Sounds Of The Universe,
also home of Soul Jazz Records and sister labels Universal Sound and World Audio Foundation, for over 20 years has been pushing world wide quality music straight into the core of London’s discerning diggers and collectors. iCrates spoke with Nicole McKenzie, probably the most responsible team memberfor their customers choices.

Can you please introduce yourself.

Hi, my name is Nicole McKenzie, I work at Sounds Of The Universe, which is Soul Jazz Records London based store. I am a buyer here and A&R for the label. I’m mainly involved in a lot of the new dubstep and bass releases, mostly recently sourcing our new Future Bass compilation.

How did you start working with records and when did you start working for Sounds Of The Universe?

When I was about 16 I was living in Croydon and started working for a small independent record shop. That’s where I started to learn more about different genres of music, up until that point I was an UK Garage girl. An older friend of mine that was working there, told me I should go up to London where there was this really cool shop called Soul Jazz (the shop was just called Soul Jazz at the time) – I went there and I loved it! A whole new world had been opened up to me.
Me and a friend use to shop and spend hours there, we did buy stuff. I think they probably just got sick of seeing our faces all the time and asked us if we would like to come and work on a Saturday, so that’s how it all went from there really. Seven years later i’m still here.

What do you do within Sounds Of The Universe?

At Sounds Of The Universe I’m buying a lot of the new music and some reissued music, I deal with a lot of distributors and general looking after the shop. Also for the label I’ve compiled a lot of the dubstep albums, Box Of Dub, Box Of Dub 2, Steppas Delight, Future Bass which is the latest one that came out a couple of months ago. Also a lot of the dubstep and some house singles that we’ve done in the past, Ramadanman, Cotti, Mala, Four Tet. They’re things I really like doing and that’s one of the most exciting parts of my job. I’m more about the new music, dubstep and everything else that came after dubstep, all this sort of housy stuff. I suppose that’s my main thing.

Can you tell me about the shop and how it relates with the label and the customers?

The label and the shop obviously have a direct relation to each other. The shop tends to reflect the label. At Sounds Of The Universe we have quite a broad selection of different music from all over the world, Brazillian, Jazz, Latin, Dubstep, House, Reggae, Disco and more – everything that the label puts out. A lot of people find out about the shop through the label and vice versa. In terms of other shops in Soho, and in London in general, we all have our own unique identity.

Which music styles do you sell and since when?

My boss Stuart Baker started off selling Jazz from a stall above Dingwalls over 20 years ago. Even in the early days it had a very good reputation and attracted DJ’s from all over. Around 1993 he moved to Ingestre Place in Soho and started the shop where he branched out and started selling more different genres of music and as new people started to work there they all brought their own flavour to the shop too.

Now we sell Chicago and Detroit House, Soul, Funk, Jazz, Reggae, Calypso, Post-Punk, Hip Hop, Dubstep, German Electronic, Brazillian and more.

But you also sell other things like DVDs, books and second hand records, how did this come about?

The books and DVDs were a natural progression. We’ve always stocked the odd interesting DVD over the years. We started off selling a lot of Black Action films as a result of Soul Jazz Records ‘Can You Dig It’ compilation (which is a definitive collection of classic soundtrack material from late 60s to mid 70′s Black action films) and it was just great to actually watch these iconic films with a groovy soundtrack. Over time we have gone to stock loads more culturally interesting and music related films that go in conjunction with the extremely eclectic music that we stock in our shop.
It’s the same with books! Some of the deeper academic books that we sell are hard to find and we offer a sort of one-stop shop for book lovers ranging from deep/cult roots, African, Brazilian, Hip Hop culture, Latin, Jazz, Bass, Reggae and loads more. I’m not short of good books to read on my lunch break, put it that way!

Who are your customers and their average age? Any famous customers?

We haven’t really got an average age of customers. We’ve had 9 year olds and well up to one of our best dubstep customers who is like 65 or something, a lawyer. We get everyone in between, all ages. We obviously get a lot of people in their twenties but I wouldn’t say there was one specific age.

In terms of some of the famous people that come in, we get a lot of DJs, Gilles Petterson, Four Tet, Benji B, ?uestlove from The Roots, Lenny Henry (stand up comedian), Martin Freeman from The Office (UK sitcom) – a very regular customer, loves his jazz, Cash Money and some of the new artists like James Blake and Mount Kimbie.

Are you connected to other shops? Do you exchange goods?

Obviously because all the stores are pretty close around here, within 2 minutes away from all the record shops in Soho, we all get on well, they obviously sell a lot of the Soul Jazz Records stuff. We just have a mutual appreciation and respect rather than directly buying or selling between each other.

While buying used records to sell in the shop, how do you choose them?

The second hand records are chosen by the boss. He has a huge knowledge of Jazz, Latin and Brazilian. That’s what he does, he doesn’t look at something as “it might be good”, he knows it’s gonna be good before he has bought it.

Which is your most valuable record and how do you set the prices?

We sold a record on our website for over £1000 which was a New Orleans funk record which happens to feature on New Orleans Funk Volume 1, it’s a very rare 7”. That was just a one-of thing, we don’t have mega hugely expensive things. At the moment our most expensive record is like £100 by Candido. Expensive doesn’t always mean it’s the best, we focus on the quality of the music not if it’s rare or expensive. We look at the market and condition of records when setting the price.

What will the vinyl business be like in the year 2030? Will there be just old and rare records or still new pressings?

I don’t think it’s something that is just gonna go away and if you really love vinyl you’ll understand. In 2030 I would imagine that it will still be here alive and kicking, there will still be fanatics and lovers of vinyl. I don’t really know what it will be like, maybe an extension of how it’s going now, where people are looking to have a really nice packaged record, limited pressings, gold vinyl or something stupid like that… I think it will be more about the package and the limited stuff. I can’t really think of how it’s going to be like but I know it will still be here and hopefully so will we!

SOUNDS OF THE UNIVERSE

7 Broadwick Street
Soho
London
W1F 0DA
England

Shop Enquiries
Phone: 020 7734 3430

E-Mail: mailorder@soundsoftheuniverse.com
Website: http://www.soundsoftheuniverse.com