Ahead of the release of his Unfinished Business Vol.2 compilation, Luke Solomon continues his quest to speak with some of the best and least known record shops, both digital and in the real world.
Here, Luke chats with Whatpeopleplay’s Hendrik Warnke and Kai Fraeger about what is a unique digital store.
Would you like to give us a little bit of background about Whatpeopleplay?
Whatpeopleplay is the digital download shop of the vinyl, CD and digital distribution company WordandSound, based out of Hamburg, Germany. The repertoire is focused on selling the variedly deeper sides of electronic – especially house and techno – music in the formats of MP3 and WAV. It’s basically an extension of Wordandsound’s main focus on the best of electronic and indie/alternative worlds of today.
I've been speaking with shops both who well both physical and digital music. The aim is to not only encourage music buying, but also to get people searching further than the front of their own nose. I am huge fan and big flag-waver of your shop, but I often find that people are unaware of you. Where is your greatest market?
Thank you very much for your kind words and support. Actually our greatest market is Germany and our strength probably would be our genuine interest in electronic music accompanied by a knowledge about the repertoire and experience in customer service.
The thing I love about WPP is that it very much suits my taste, but I also find the browsing and navigation simple to use. You specialize in more ‘underground’ fields of dance music – do you A&R the site as a whole by wading through piles of music? Or are you very specific about what music is included in the store?
On the A&R side we try to find a mix between presenting and featuring new releases from new labels and releases from already well known (or established) labels. Therefore we carefully listen to music in label requests and DJ mixes or read about it in magazines, blogs and newsletters. The most common way we follow recommendations we receive from our colleagues is from the other departments or by friends or even by customers or visitors.
Regarding our (piles of) music it probably makes the most sense to listen to the new Get Lost VII mixed by Craig Richards released on Crosstown Rebels.It has been described in our shop as "...a compilation from bright to dark and straight to weird with lots of sought after classics". After listening to that you will probably have an idea of the selection process that goes into Whatpeopleplay.
I often find music I can't find elsewhere… do you all pride yourselves in being crate-diggers?
We try to combine a personal signature with a general level of comfort as best we can. This means that we listen firstly to the sound snippets of the tracks before deciding whether a certain release will be featured or not and where. On the other hand it appears that regularly visiting people buy tracks which haven't been intentionally featured anywhere on the site at all.
How do you see the future of digital music sales? The word very much on the industry’s lips at the moment is ‘streaming’. This currently is only really relevant to home listeners, but I am sure there will come a time when the DJs music can be streamed to his or her location - is that something you are aware of?
Wordandsound is of course reviewing this in all aspects, especially in terms of distributing (digital) music in general. We are aware that there are already existing services for this and that more are planned. The future has yet to bring more in light into how the relevant revenue models will fit with our labels needs and wants. So here’s one back to you: how do you see this yourself, Luke, in terms of being a DJ and label owner?
It’s intriguing, yet a little terrifying. The possibility that DJs will have their entire music collections available wirelessly at a nightclub is something we never thought possible. But the reality that it might be somewhere in the future. I still don't know if it's a good thing or bad thing...it’s an unknown quantity that fascinates me though. I still marvel at the fact that you can now take a pen-sized USB into a club in your pocket and create a party!
As mentioned previously, you have an affiliation with Wordandsound distribution so you are very much in the business of marketing and selling vinyl. How does this compare to the digital store? Obviously it is a very different business - but is there a place where the two can benefit each other?
Wordandsound are currently one of the only companies to offer a three-way service: vinyl/CD distribution, digital distribution and a digital store. Wordandsound also helps with offering label-oriented services and advice in many other ways. We are a through and through independent music services provider, I would say, with a focus on ‘deep quality’.
One place where the physical and the digital sales benefit each other is our office, where we meet and discuss the music we work with. Take Floating Points ‘Sparkling Controversy’ (Eglo038) for example: we listened to it here at noon and a few hours later we've received a short notification by their digital (and physical) distribution company that the release will be delivered and available digitally straight away. As we very much liked the release on the vinyl we waited ten minutes for the delivery, put the release into our shop online and featured it on a large banner on our newsletter.
The opposite is also possible; a release appears on WPP and gets picked by Wordandsound’s A&Rs for a vinyl, CD or general digital distribution scenario. Wordandsound Digital is, as a matter of fact, also a powerful, dedicated digital distributor, but they don’t necessarily favour us over other stores; whatever is best for the release gets the most attention. Fair play is the most effective strategy for the label’s needs.
Finally, do you have any words of wisdom for people or record labels that are in the business of selling music both digitally and physically?
It is not easy, and it does not come cheap, especially if you want to produce vinyl). Done right, it’s a business too and it needs all the attention a business requires. But for all of us here, it’s still the greatest and most rewarding thing on earth, to work with music. So if you want to go for it, go for it, but make sure you go all the way. Work for it, invest in it, push it, promote it, make it worthy and stand out… or forget it! Running a label can be all the fun your favourite pastime brings, but the joy won’t last long if you don’t do it for real.
Unfinished Business Volume 2 compiled & mixed by Luke Solomon is out 26 October (vinyl sampler and digital) on Classic Music Company - order from Whatpeopleplay
