Hear Now – one of Melbourne’s few remaining independent vinyl retailers – closed its doors in August 2009. A sad occurence for a number of reasons, not least because Hear Now was somewhere you could actually buy new vinyl. These places are becoming rarer – especially in Australia – and it’s sad to see a focal point in the local scene bow out.

Currently in Melbourne there is, by my calculation, only one independent retailer stocking any newly released 12 inch records you’d actually be interested in hearing, let alone buying. (Plenty of secondhand of course, but that’s another story.) So if you’re in the minority like me and a) don’t want to download and play digital files or b) would ideally prefer to buy from a shop you can walk into, you’re not left with many options.