Justin Ang, the new Pastor at Scots Church, has written this piece on why Vinyl LPs are important and how they contribute to our quality of life.. This article copied from Scots Church "The Leaflet " Autumn 2024 with their permission.

We take it for granted now that we are going to sell record playing technology. We have always been invested in it as an organisation. During the long dark years of digital dominance of our marketplace ecosystem we would keep a Rega Planar 3 on demo, often with an abused copy of Dark Side of The Moon collecting dust on the platter, and would demonstrate to those who cared to listen how ... fundamentally satisfying ... the sound was.

As a small business we are a leaf upon the waters and have no influence on the marketplace as such but through demonstration of our wares effectively can modulate the direction of an individual who cares to listen.

Turntables were always a part of our business therefore even though by 1991 when we opened most manufacturers had thrown the towel in and many beautiful replay instruments were being sold for a fraction. Most people were happy with CD as it was presented to them in the eighties. The "indestructible format with huge dynamic range" that took up less space and didn't scratch and crackle.  Turntables and records were officially declared obsolete in the early eighties, as exemplified by this Rodrigues cartoon from Stereo Review in 1984.

More than anything this is the one album that was the backdrop to my dysfunctional teenage years in Cambridge and Manchester. I'm playing the vinyl today for the first time in ... actually years.

I note with interest on the recent International Record Store Day website that our area of Melbourne has the highest concentration of participating stores in Australia by a huge margin.