We Spoke To Phonica About Their Brilliant Tenth Birthday Compilation

"Phonica has always felt very close to me. Within the last ten years the music universe has become incredibly complex and difficult to navigate. Phonica has been a lighthouse since day one; managing to stay in that position until today, and shining even brighter now. Why do we trust them and not someone else? In all the years I haven't met many lighthouse keepers like Simon Rigg, who puts all this energy and enthusiasm into the music we love. I have always been impressed by that - and still am. Even if it gets more foggy in the future, Phonica will always shine a light." - Henrik Schwarz

On the 2013 Record Store Day, a chunk of Soho became carnival-esque. The road was blocked off, a sound system confronted the braying crowd, and Soulwax were snuck in the back door of Phonica like rock stars, for their surprise in-store DJ set. It got so mental that in the end, Phonica closed early to stop the crowd reaching crush levels; no small feat for an independent record store on what is now accepted as one of the busiest trading days of the year. Yet, Phonica is no small feat in itself.

2014 marks the ten year anniversary of this London institution that has not just weathered the storm of mass-closure of record stores across the UK, but thrived; hosting in-stores with line-ups to rival club nights, challenging and championing divergent tastes, and keeping buyers regular and passing intriuged by their knowledge of house, techno, and nearly every shade between.

To mark the ten year anniversary of Phonica, the in-house label has released Ten Years of Phonica: a triple CD/LP compilation that hosts exclusively commissioned and gifted tracks from artists close to Phonica's heart, and a staff-curated look back through the Phonica label. Ahead too of their birthday event this Saturday, featuring Henrik Schwarz, Kasseem Mosse and more, THUMP spoke to Phonica's Simon Rigg and Nick Williams about curating the release, and how life behind the counter given them a unique view onto music culture.

THUMP: What was the concept behind the compilation?

Nick: We wanted to make a statement. We've got a few labels, but we've never done album or a compilation. There's lots of different genres we represent here, and all the staff have different likes and dislikes. There's not just "Okay, we do deep house music", or "We do techno". We want to cover all bases and seeing as ten years is such a milestone, we wanted to make it a bit more special.

What has the feedback been like from the artists, too?

Nick: John Morales got in touch recently about it. He said that Phonica "is a home to him and all the music heads", and that it was "a pleasure" to contribute to it. Which is all we can ask, really.

Why a triple CD too? Surely that must have been quite a fraught decision-making process amongst the staff.

Simon: We did think, a long time ago, about what would it be like to put out an album, but it just seemed such a monumental task. The compilation ended up being a good years worth of work at least, from the concept to the very end. And that's just all of us talking to everyone - whoever was friendliest with whoever. Every artist who contributing we either know personally or have a relationship with them through the store. The cover photo for it was taken from Fran, who is also a friend of mine.

Nick: Since the shop takes over so much of our time the labels always been something we do afterwards, in our own time. Nine times out of ten we're supporting someone new, because we want to push music that we think people should hear.

Simon: When we look back at what we had, for the third CD there are so many things we didn't put on there, even though there's more room to work with in a CD format. You realise that you can just, add another disc. It's not a massive cost, unlike with vinyl. We thought, "Why don't we do a third disc, why don't we round it all up?"

Nick: Oh, we are releasing it on vinyl though, ha. We've got a triple album and three vinyl samples, so it's going to be six vinyl all in.

It has a great flow across the three CDs. Did you have the mind-set of making it a mix, as much as a collection of tracks?

Simon: I think that's what what we spent the most time arguing over, the track order. We definitely tried to do a beginning, middle and end to each CD.

Nick: Yeah, it's definitely a little journey between each.  The second one we tried to make a little bit more home listening, but it's so subjective. Some people who'll be really keen to buy this will want to listen to it all the way through and not have any interruptions, so that's where you end up thinking, "There needs to have a flow to it". If you just did two loads of techno tracks and just bang it out, it might be a bit much after an hour of listening.

What are your personal favourites from the compilation?

Simon: My favourite is the Four Tet remix of Bob Holyrod's 'African Drug'. This one's a bit strange. I was talking about the track one day and then a week later the guy who made it came into the shop trying to sell us some CDs of his new material. He made this record in 1994. I'd always loved it, but also always thought it needed a remix. When he came in and I realised who he was, I asked him if we could licence his record. It's one of my favourite records on the whole label, and it's one of the biggest selling too.

Nick: I really like the Trevor Jackson. He was quite against giving us this track at first because it was for an animation he made, but it's honestly an amazing piece. He gave us another brand new track which was quite extreme, and would have sat well amongst the others, but I think it's a nice idea that we might have rescued something that otherwise would have been forever lost.