We Spoke To Phonica About Their Brilliant Tenth Birthday Compilation

“Phonica has always felt very close to me. Within the last ten years the music universe has become incredibly complex and difficult to navigate. Phonica has been a lighthouse since day one; managing to stay in that position until today, and shining even brighter now. Why do we trust them and not someone else? In all the years I haven’t met many lighthouse keepers like Simon Rigg, who puts all this energy and enthusiasm into the music we love. I have always been impressed by that – and still am. Even if it gets more foggy in the future, Phonica will always shine a light.” – Henrik Schwarz

On the 2013 Record Store Day, a chunk of Soho became carnival-esque. The road was blocked off, a sound system confronted the braying crowd, and Soulwax were snuck in the back door of Phonica like rock stars, for their surprise in-store DJ set. It got so mental that in the end, Phonica closed early to stop the crowd reaching crush levels; no small feat for an independent record store on what is now accepted as one of the busiest trading days of the year. Yet, Phonica is no small feat in itself.

Videos by VICE

2014 marks the ten year anniversary of this London institution that has not just weathered the storm of mass-closure of record stores across the UK, but thrived; hosting in-stores with line-ups to rival club nights, challenging and championing divergent tastes, and keeping buyers regular and passing intriuged by their knowledge of house, techno, and nearly every shade between.

To mark the ten year anniversary of Phonica, the in-house label has released Ten Years of Phonica: a triple CD/LP compilation that hosts exclusively commissioned and gifted tracks from artists close to Phonica’s heart, and a staff-curated look back through the Phonica label. Ahead too of their birthday event this Saturday, featuring Henrik Schwarz, Kasseem Mosse and more, THUMP spoke to Phonica’s Simon Rigg and Nick Williams about curating the release, and how life behind the counter given them a unique view onto music culture.

THUMP: What was the concept behind the compilation?

Nick: We wanted to make a statement. We’ve got a few labels, but we’ve never done album or a compilation. There’s lots of different genres we represent here, and all the staff have different likes and dislikes. There’s not just “Okay, we do deep house music”, or “We do techno”. We want to cover all bases and seeing as ten years is such a milestone, we wanted to make it a bit more special.

What has the feedback been like from the artists, too?

Nick: John Morales got in touch recently about it. He said that Phonica “is a home to him and all the music heads”, and that it was “a pleasure” to contribute to it. Which is all we can ask, really.

Why a triple CD too? Surely that must have been quite a fraught decision-making process amongst the staff.

Simon: We did think, a long time ago, about what would it be like to put out an album, but it just seemed such a monumental task. The compilation ended up being a good years worth of work at least, from the concept to the very end. And that’s just all of us talking to everyone – whoever was friendliest with whoever. Every artist who contributing we either know personally or have a relationship with them through the store. The cover photo for it was taken from Fran, who is also a friend of mine.

Nick: Since the shop takes over so much of our time the labels always been something we do afterwards, in our own time. Nine times out of ten we’re supporting someone new, because we want to push music that we think people should hear.

Simon: When we look back at what we had, for the third CD there are so many things we didn’t put on there, even though there’s more room to work with in a CD format. You realise that you can just, add another disc. It’s not a massive cost, unlike with vinyl. We thought, “Why don’t we do a third disc, why don’t we round it all up?”

Nick: Oh, we are releasing it on vinyl though, ha. We’ve got a triple album and three vinyl samples, so it’s going to be six vinyl all in.

It has a great flow across the three CDs. Did you have the mind-set of making it a mix, as much as a collection of tracks?

Simon: I think that’s what what we spent the most time arguing over, the track order. We definitely tried to do a beginning, middle and end to each CD.

Nick: Yeah, it’s definitely a little journey between each. The second one we tried to make a little bit more home listening, but it’s so subjective. Some people who’ll be really keen to buy this will want to listen to it all the way through and not have any interruptions, so that’s where you end up thinking, “There needs to have a flow to it”. If you just did two loads of techno tracks and just bang it out, it might be a bit much after an hour of listening.

What are your personal favourites from the compilation?

Simon: My favourite is the Four Tet remix of Bob Holyrod’s ‘African Drug’. This one’s a bit strange. I was talking about the track one day and then a week later the guy who made it came into the shop trying to sell us some CDs of his new material. He made this record in 1994. I’d always loved it, but also always thought it needed a remix. When he came in and I realised who he was, I asked him if we could licence his record. It’s one of my favourite records on the whole label, and it’s one of the biggest selling too.

Nick: I really like the Trevor Jackson. He was quite against giving us this track at first because it was for an animation he made, but it’s honestly an amazing piece. He gave us another brand new track which was quite extreme, and would have sat well amongst the others, but I think it’s a nice idea that we might have rescued something that otherwise would have been forever lost.

What was the animation it was composed for like?

Nick: It was an animation specifically for the IMAX cinema – because, you know he does everything, designing clothes and record sleeves. He gave us all of the extended version of it. I think it would do some damage if people played it out, which I don’t think he could have ever imagined.

How have you found the experience at Phonica over the last few years?

Nick: The tenth year has coincided with the store becoming even busier. I’d say it’s been getting steadily busier in the last four years. I think it’s helped that we’ve done more events in-store too. We did more in-stores last year than the previous two years combined.

You must have seen a really broad range of people coming into the shop over the years, especially as you’re central London.

Simon: We’ve always had a really diverse set of customers, and that always changes constantly. The young kids are really on the hot things that sell out really quick.

Nick: Now, because of social media, and the way people will know about things straight away, you’ll have 300 copies that sell out within a day. So people are really on it. If you slack off, or go on holiday for two weeks, you’ll miss out on all these great records.

Simon: Sometimes you just don’t know. For example, we had 30 copies of the Paleman record on Swamp81. We never put it up on our Facebook or anything, we’d had it in for a week and sold 10 copies, and then all of a sudden we’d sold all of them in 5 minutes – and we still don’t know why! Someone either posts a link we don’t see, or a DJ plays it in a set that goes down really well, and they’re gone. You have to be really quick as soon as there’s a hype about a record. If you wait 5 minutes and make a cup of tea, they can be all gone because other shops have bought up all the copies. It’s exactly the same for the stores as it is for a person trying to buy a record.

What about buying habits too; what trends have you noticed in the past year or so, say?

Nick: One thing I’ve noticed is people asking for vinyl-only releases. DJs are always in competition with each other, so if you just play downloads and everyone knows those tracks, their sets are not always going to be that interesting. The really big DJs, people like Seth Troxler, they want to be able to mix it up and throw in things that so and so DJ after them won’t have. There’s a lot of oneupmanship.

Simon: The other thing thats changed since we opened is that we don’t really tend to sell the big dance records so much now. When we opened, people would come in to buy the records that they heard that weekend. But no one does that anymore, at least not on vinyl. If you’re not a DJ or a collector, you just download. Those customers, casual collectors, people who just want a record because they heard it out, has definitely disappeared.

The MK remix of Storm Queen that went to UK No. 1 recently: we sold 300 copies of that two years ago, but now that it’s come out on Ministry of Sound we’ve sold maybe 10 copies of the new version. 95% of the people who listen to it will download it. They won’t go to the shops to buy chart music. All our customers are also a little bit ahead, and would have bought it two years ago.

Nick: The other thing I think has changed in the last two years is store-only releases. Those are really extreme. They weren’t allowed to go on our website – or any website, to be honest. You had to come to the shop. I quite like those, although we have to be careful to make sure we give them out, otherwise they can stay languishing in a box. The reason behind people like Rush Hour doing store only is that they don’t want people to forget that the place people have always gone to buy music is the record store. That’s why we exist. Don’t just sit at home. Go to your local record store, and pick something up that people who just shop online won’t have access too.

The Phonica crew.

So store-only releases and in-stores are about continuing that community imperative?

Simon: We don’t make any money from in-stores. To be honest, we probably lose money because people can’t leisurely look around. It puts the regular customers off. But we do that because it’s like giving something back to the customer, and that’s why DJ who would never normally play for free, do. We all love music here, and what’s better than having a DJ play in the shop for free? It joins up the dots.

Nick: Some young kid will come in to see someone they’ve bought a record by, they may even ask them to sign it. Everything will be a lot closer than when you’re at home miles away from the record shop that you bought it, and a million miles away from the producer or label that put it out. Then afterwards they might go out to a club, and they’ll also meet people who also buy records and like that DJ. It joins up all of those things in one place.

Have you found yourself caught out at points by unexpected trends at all?

Simon: We’re normally one step ahead. Once The Guardian has labelled it ‘outsider house’, it’s already become a bit of a cliche.

Simon: I’m not usually surprised by what’s being rated critically, but I’m surprised by what does well commercially. Not what’s in the charts, but by mainstream dance. Im surprised the rise of DJs like Eats Everything, for example, and how he was in the top 5 DJs poll on Resident Advisor, and Disclosure because as we dont see any record sales in the shop….but then on download, they are selling 1000s.

Nick: That is even more surprising in this day of instantly records blowing up, that there is this stationary period where kids have been on that record. They’re a lot quicker than these old fashioned, larger commercial records.

Simon: For more underground records, I don’t think I’m that surprised by how things are hyped up. There’s definitely some records that are hyped because of their scarcity: white labels, or recent labels like L.I.E.S Black and White Material being the obvious examples. Where you can just build up hype on there being few copies. Initially, these are scarce because labels are cautious in their pressings, but then if there is demand, they should repress it and not leave it to the sharks on Discogs.

Nick: Definitely. It helps us sell records too, ha. That’s the whole point. That’s why we’re still here after all, right? For the love of records.

Phonica presents: Ten Years of Phonica is released on February 17th via Phonica Records.

Phonica are celebrating their tenth birthday at Fire, London, with live sets From Henrik Schwarz, Kaseem Mosse, and DJs. Details here.