Vinyl now available for lending!

Vinyl, records, LP’s – they’re all the same thing, produce great sound, are once again in high demand and now, Wellington City Libraries is lending them out!

Wellington Vinyl

Vinyl is now available to borrow from the Central library, covering Popular, Soul, Electronica New Zealand, Wellington genres and more at the reasonable price of $1.00 for seven days.

Take your borrowed vinyl home and then return titles to the library in our convenient cardboard satchels.

Satchels

You can reserve vinyl using our catalogue, by searching for titles with call number ’vinyl,’ – click reserve and have them delivered to your local branch.

We’ll be adding new release, re-issues and deluxe titles every week, so keep an eye on our display spaces in the Central library’s Sound and Vision area.

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Neil’s top vinyl picks

Resident music expert Neil has put together his favourites of our vinyl collection, launching this Saturday (see all the event details here). Browse his picks below, and check out our previous blog posts for more staff vinyl picks.

The EpicThe epic.
This beautifully packagedthree-disc album by saxophonist Kamasi Washingtonis indeed Epic. After playing on albums by Kendrick Lamar and Flying Lotus, Washington has gathered a fine ensemble of musicians for his debut, which embraces elements of the past as well as contemporary funk and hip hop and a taste of the future,. Plus, there’s a bass player called Thundercat. What else do you need?

TigermilkTigermilk.
Taking their name from the French children’s televison programme, Stuart Murdoch and his Glasgow chums released this album on vinyl only as a school project in 1996, but by the time it got a general release three years later, it was changing hands for huge sums. Strong tunes and quirky lyrics frame the lush and bittersweet songs, peopled by outsiders, dreamers and misfits. An instant classic.

Brothers and Sisters of the Black LagoonBrothers and sisters of the black lagoon.
Third album by the Wellington psychedelic funsters, this showcases their wide range of styles from funk to Latin to electro to prog to fuzzed-out rock, all in a broad kiwi accent. If New Zealand ever get their space programme together, this album would be the perfect soundtrack, as well as providing a handy packing list.

Songs in the Key of LifeSongs in the key of life.
A sprawling double album, encompassing funk, gospel, love songs and social comment, reflective songs and insanely catchy party music, with liberal doses of his newly-discovered synthesizer, this finds Stevie at the peak of his powers and is probably the greatest soul album of the seventies. Nothing he’s produced in the ensuing 40 years has come anywhere close to this, and it was certainly all downhill from here, but this album contains more classic tracks than most artists manage in their entire career.

Wolf PartyWolf party : New Zealand werewolf sounds from Stink Magnetic / compiled by D. Thomas Herkes.
Subtitled “New Zealand werewolf sounds from Stink Magnetic”, this is a brilliant and warped collection of surf music, primitive fuzzy rock and psychobilly from Boss Christ, The Damned Evangelist, Delaney Davidson, The Chandeliers and many other local talents. The perfect soundtrack to a tripped out full moon costume party, or for just getting the blood flowing on a cold winter’s morning…