Dave Seaman unveils new Selador release and his love affair with vinyl

The last 14 months have predominantly been a period of disruption and upheaval for most of us, allowing many time to reflect and deduce what’s really important to them. When excused from the rat race for an enforced period of time, it seems no coincidence that many passions have been rekindled as people remember the things they truly love. For Selador Records boss (job share) Dave Seaman, lockdown sparked just such a reconnection as he embarked on the long overdue task of organising his record collection. 

“It had been a job I’d been putting off for years just due to the sheer size of it. Even though I’d had a couple fo clear-outs before, I still had over 10,000 records and I knew that I could probably shed at least half of them to get down to the real classics, the ones that held special memories for me. I figured that 5,000 was still a healthy collection and would be more manageable. It would basically fill an entire wall of my office and serve as a constant source of inspiration. But I didn’t just want to sift through and sort the ‘keeps’ from the ones to ‘let-go’, as these were the ones I’d deemed worthy of keeping when I had my last big downsize. I felt that each one deserved one last play before judgement, which also gave me chance to check everything for possible samples ( I ended up recording over 1000 loops, kick drums, one shots, vocal snippets and more). It was a long process but not only was it a cathartic one, as just about every piece of vinyl holds a memory in some shape or form, it made me really reconnect with the physical format and my boyhood love of collecting records. It took me the best part of a year to get through everything. Without Covid, I don’t think it would have ever happened.” 

With vinyl sales now at their highest since the mid 90s, new figures reveal that nearly one in five (18%) of all albums purchased across 2020 were vinyl, with 4.8 million LPs being purchased in the UK alone, numbers up 10% on 2019’s figures, Seaman offers his own thoughts as to why that might be..

“This renewed bond with my collection reinforced how much of an emotional attachment there is to vinyl as opposed to the cold functionality of the MP3 or virtual world of streaming. I realised that I never really trawled through old Dropbox folders in the cloud of the best tracks of from a particular year,  but I do really enjoy grouping sections of records together into years, genres, labels or whatever. It didn’t take long before I’d completely got the bug again and started buying new records. Having not really bought much vinyl for over a decade, there’s some glaring gaps that need filling but the joy of collecting is back. Just the buzz of the postman turning up with a new record and the whole opening and playing ritual, is a little treat I really look forward to.” 

Dave continues… “I don’t think this will turn into me carrying boxes of records around the world with me again when I DJ live just yet, but never say never. One thing I do know is as a label, Selador is going to try to do more and more vinyl moving forward. It’s a tough market with tight margins, but sometimes you just gotta do things  for the love of it, because it feels good. And you can’t beat that new vinyl feeling” 

Selador’s new vinyl release, The Dave Seaman ‘Remixes’ EP featuring a selection of reworks of some of Dave’s recent releases by Rodriguez Jr., Whitesquare, Doctor Dru and a perviously unreleased remix by Damon Jee is out now at all good retail emporiums or directly through the Selador website or Bandcamp page…