Hi 2024! There’s a new vinylcast in the making

It’s the time between Christmas and New Year and here in Wales it’s raining buckets. The world is grey and it’s closing in… creating a cosy, liminal space between the old year and the new. It’s the perfect time to listen to music.

Now, I am very lucky to have gotten a record player as a present this year (making us, ehem…. a FOUR record players household. One for the living room, a portable one for travel, and one in each of our offices). It’s a reflection of how much music we listen to and also that we spent a LOT of time at home as we both work from home permanently.

I am REALLY excited about the record player, probably more excited than I thought I would be. I do buy vinyl records but I don’t collect them and I already have digital ways of listening to music in my office, so although I was playing with the idea of getting one, I wasn’t set on it. Now that it’s here, sitting happily between art books and stationary, I love it. I love it because it’s encouraging me to get up, to listen to more music and to indulge in my creative side. The side that buys nearly exclusively new music and enjoys the hope that comes with that. When I was a teenager, I wistfully bought records recorded decades before I was even born. I had a sense that the best time in music had happened before I had a chance to experience it. And although I still enjoy music from previous decades, nowadays much of what I listen to is contemporary. People create incredible things in the here and now.

One of the things I want to do more of in 2024 is to enjoy things, and a couple of weeks ago I decided that as part of that effort, I would focus on buying more new music, and… also to finally get my act together and sort out my own radio set up. I love internet radio and so far I have always been reliant on the kind help of others to make it happen.

So for 2024, the motto is: Vinylcasting, here I come!

I always enjoyed doing radio in the past, and luckily my colleagues in the Reclaim team are always up for a bit of working radio, so I am hoping to get into a regular habit of playing music whilst I am working and sharing new music I like along the way.

Once I have more details, I’ll share them so you can listen in.