Coda Records

Rare Live-Broadcast Vinyl, From a UK Label Devoted to the Lost Tapes.

Coda Records is the rather brilliant UK independent vinyl label run by people who are, quite simply, obsessives — devoted collectors and curators who spend their working days traversing the global landscape of music history in search of legendary live broadcasts that never properly made it to record. They then press them, in small batches, on coloured 180-gram vinyl, with proper liner notes and proper packaging — and the result is a back catalogue that reads rather like a fantasy concert calendar of the 60s, 70s, 80s, and beyond. Black Sabbath in Sydney 1980, AC/DC in Boston 1978, The Doors in Stockholm 1968, the Sex Pistols at Winterland 1978, Led Zeppelin in Southampton 1973, The Cure in Washington DC 1984, Pink Floyd's John Peel session from 1970. The sort of recordings the proper enthusiasts have spent years hunting on bootleg cassette.

The pressings are deliberately small (300, 500, sometimes a few hundred more) which makes everything in the catalogue properly collectable — and the coloured-vinyl approach (transparent oranges, lagoon blues, teals, reds, yellows) means each release is also rather a beautiful object on the shelf. Coda also runs a parallel line of vinyl-themed apparel for the people who, frankly, prefer their record collection visible on their chest: hoodies and tees with slogans the committed will recognise instantly ("Vinyl Ain't Dead," "Crate Digger," "Just an Analog Guy in a Digital World," and the rather useful "If Found Please Return to the Record Store"). Trustpilot is full of people apologetically describing their husbands' 8,000-record collections, and Coda's quiet ability to find them something genuinely new.

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