News

So said the pop chanteuse and philosopher Nelly Furtado. We still get people in the shop disappointed we don’t have a huge range of Bright Eyes merchandise as well as every CD but truth be told we lost their fans to DC (direct to customer) as the music industry calls it quite a while ago […]

Just bought some nice Edinburgh skyline tote bags to give to my customers that buy a lot a of vinyl and have Avalanche bags already.

I have been asked several times why the Avalanche chart is based on sales. I admit most charts are used as promotional tools, to brown nose labels and bands and generally look “cool” but to me it seems obvious that we should publish what our customers buy as the Avalanche chart otherwise we would be […]

Here is the predicted chart placings. They will of course be adjusted  later allowing for December’s sales but I doubt they will change much. 1.  Star Wheel Press – Life Cycle Of A Falling Bird 2.  Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat – Everything’s Getting Older 3.  King Creosote and Jon Hopkins – Diamond Mine 4.  PJ […]

As CD sales plummet and famed shops close, brave entrepreneurs are trying to reinvent the model. Is it too late? On Wednesday night, hundreds of people passed through the doors of Other Music, one of New York City’s last remaining record stores. Yes, there was free booze. But the young, plugged-in crowd came to celebrate, […]

Who the hell are Monoganon?!  Well, they are the songs and sounds of Fence Home Game / Hallowe’en favourite, Mr John B McKenna – ably assisted by a bunch of his pals. Debut LP, Songs To Swim To, is a collection of seven dreamy fuzz-folk laments.  John B’s lyrics dive in and out of a sea of consciousness (like […]

As expected my tweet about not releasing albums on cassette got an immediate response from others extolling its virtues. I don’t know anybody who remembers cassettes first time round that looks back on them fondly. From the quality of the sound to the rather limited artwork cassettes had nothing going for them except the convenience […]

Thanks to everybody who came along to the Bwani Junction album launch today

Avalanche favourites Farewell Poetry are playing at The Third Door on Lothian Street along with Matthew Collings, Hiva Oa and Opul this Monday starting at 7pm. A collective comprised of Parisian musicians and an Anglo-saxon poet and filmmaker, FareWell Poetry is a bold and electrifying project that combines performance film, musical experimentation (drone, post-rock, orchestrated […]

‘Better than Josh Pearson!’ That was what it said on the hand-printed sticker. The sticker was attached to an odd-looking CD in the new releases section of the Edinburgh record shop, Avalanche. The shop’s proprietor, Kevin Buckle, was the man behind the claim. I asked him about the album. It was by an Aberfeldy-based group […]