I did an interesting summer holiday trip. Started from Istanbul, continued through Sofia to Belgrade and all the way up till Budapest to finish off. On my trip I mostly wanted to concentrate on chilling out the work stress and of course digging some gems from the crates. Here’s a trip report blog post with some info about stores to go and at the end of this post you’ll find my guest mixtape from Tilos Radio where I was playing records that I had picked during my trip.

Rest of the stuff after break!

First to Istanbul! I visited quite many shops but I want to point out two particular ones, the ones I really can recommend to other diggers. Zoltan Records and Vintage Records. Both shops are located in Kadikoy district on Asian side of the city. Zoltan Records is owned by a guy that kept amazing me. I sat at the store one and a half days just listening some Turkish 7″ records with him. Just when you thought you had heard something special and crazy groovy stuff, he’ll just pull the next 7″ from the big pile and keeps amazing you more. I was really stunned how much good music there is in Turkey! I just need to go for more!

Going first to Istanbul was also a bit of a downside on my trip – I mean record buying vice. Records are not cheap in Turkey and since I had just started my trip, really needed to keep costs on reasonable level hehe. So I decided to leave lot of amazing singles to Zoltan and Vintage records just waiting for new owner, that isn’t me. Sob sob sob… Other thing to know if digging Turkish stuff, keep checking those record condition carefully! I felt like digging some polish jazz that has the same problem. Records have been often stored very badly and worn off quite badly. So be warned and always listen the records (this actually implies to record digging in general…)!

Nothing special to report from Sofia, but Belgrade! Uh oh! I spent one whole day from noon till 8pm at Yugovinyl. This is just one of those shops where I really, really want to go back for more. So I spent a whole day, nonstop listening music and huh I can tell you listening great music from hifi tube amp setup is GREAT! Check short youtube clip revealing the shop (and the setup) from: here. Listening music just can’t get any better! Or umm, it can really. Yes. Yugovinyl is owned by a great guy, he’s joking around, relaxed, picking some great stuff for you to listen and then after a while, some more and more and more. Whole day was just about listening to music, drinking moonshine made out of plum. Just perfect!

Budapest is another great city to have a parties, dig some records and of course for relaxing. Laci Backsi is the one I want to recommend. Fair prices, good selection for Hungarian stuff, but also some polish, italian, some ex-yogoslavian, greek, etc. stuff. There are lots of other shops (check recordjunkie.com: here). But I mostly found Laci Backsi to be the one that serves record junkies needs the best.

Along digging in Budapest I played at Tilos radio (as mentioned above and below is the show) but also at Diszkovagas party. I want to thank Diszkovagas crew for this opportunity to play at their club. Club had recently moved to new location and since weather in Budapest was more than great, we played on the terrace. If you go to Budapest anytime soon, head to club U26 on Friday night where these geezers are spinning disco stuff! Maybe we see you again during this winter?! Hope so!

As you noticed, mostly wrote about general feelings and about record stores to go. I want to leave music exploring and the joy of finding something great to you. Mixtape below will give you just a hint what’s out there, waiting to be rediscovered!

My friend, Carlos, at Budapest is hosting weekly show at local radio station Tilos. He asked me to make around one hour mixtape out of the records I had purchased already on my trip and play those on hes radio show. So here it is, enjoy!

01 Bergendy – Reciprok Akkordok
02 Debreceni Jazz Group – Bitter
03 RTB Big Band – Balkan Express
04 Janko Nilovic – Xenos Cosmos
05 Cici Kizlar – Vakko
06 Ersen ve Dadaslar – Derman Bulunmaz
07 Ersen – Kozan Dagi
08 Ali Kocatepe – Yeni Bir Dunya
09 Po Sumama i Gorama – Komandant Sava
10 Zalatnay – Cameleon
11 September – Florida
12 Skorpio – Ne Haragudj Ram

alt. download: here

To listen more of this stuff, on 24th of September head to Cafe Europa! Check Facebook event from: here!

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