"My record collection probably tells the story of my life better than I could in words."
That's a quote from Colleen Murphy, one of the 130-plus vinyl collectors profiled in Dust & Grooves, the beautiful and engrossing new book from photographer and writer Eilon Paz. It will be available Saturday, April 19 — Record Store Day — at select record stores in limited quantities. The book will then become generally available to all on May 20 for $66.
The idea for the coffee-table tome is simple: Paz traveled around the world, photographing record collectors in their homes with their vast libraries. It's a mix of reportage and portraiture, with people holding up their favorite slabs of wax, listening in a chair, flipping through their bins, DJing, posing with their children, or just standing in front of their floor-to-ceiling racks. Each collector gets a page or two, and each gets to tell a little story about a particular record, or an anecdote about their collection's history. Some go deeper — there are 12 longer interviews at the end of the book.
These personal bits are what elevate the book beyond just a luxurious piece of phonographic pornography (though it works on that level too). Any collector's horde is a window to their past. While browsing our own bins, we can remember where we were when we bought each record, who we were with, which songs are married to which specific emotions. Album covers reminds us of one summer night, a road trip, a long-lost lover. These memories are universal to all vinyl freaks, and many of them are in this book.
If you're a collector, you'll gasp and gawk at the full-blown insanity of the libraries in some of the photos. You'll get that little spurt of joy when you spot a record you yourself also own. And of course, you'll taste that bitter tinge of jealousy whenever you see one of Paz's profile subjects holding up a record you've been trying to score a copy of for years. Like the copy of Caetano Veloso's Bicho on page 47 — man, this one time when I was in Paris...
