Text and photography by Narelle Yabuka

ivinyl, Australia’s first virtual vinyl store and internet lounge, turns the tables on buying music.

“We Googled the idea and found no one was doing it.” It might sound a little flimsy at first, but it is in fact a highly appropriate piece of market research for a business idea based on the exchange of zeros and ones. Brad Miller – underground miner turned avid DJ with community ideals – had seen the light. Internet lounge combined with virtual vinyl store. Why hadn’t anyone done this before?

He opened ivinyl in the inner-Perth suburb of Leederville with his partner Cathy a year ago – the first facility of its kind in Australia. Its base function is a high-speed Internet lounge, also offering wireless access, web cam and printing facilities, coffee and other drinks. Its point of difference lies in its musical offerings. “This is the first Internet lounge where customers can [legally] buy mp3 files and vinyl online without a credit card, which is something most young people don’t have,” explained Brad. The purchased tracks can be burnt to CD on demand.

ivinyl also offers music conversion services, transposing material on vinyl to CD. Furthermore, it maintains an “open decks” policy, whereby DJs can book the in-store decks to play and record their own set. “The decks are open to anyone who wants to come and have a mix,” Brad said of his user-friendly arrangement. And on the ivinyl website, he maintains a directory of local DJs. “We want ivinyl to be a hub.”

And so it is becoming. 100 people dropped in for ivinyl’s recent first birthday celebrations, during which 12 DJs played back-to-back for 12 hours. “We see it as an extension of our living room,” said Brad, “where we can go online, play music, watch a movie, have a drink.” But the creation of this ideal hang out environment was by no means left to chance. The Millers engaged designer Carol Anne Cassidy to fit out the space and incorporate the ivinyl logo (designed by Hugh Garwood) into the interior. An internet lounge blessed by a designer’s touch? This is also possibly an Australian first. Even better, it was a designer who loves to manipulate the physical (or tangible) realm with heavy doses of the intangible.

“We wanted to diverge completely from the typically dingy look of most backpacker-style internet cafés,” said Carol Anne, “but maintain a grungy feel. The space had to be robust and heavy duty enough to cater to groups of guys hanging out.” Black and a selection of greys were thus chosen to form the base colour palette, with a vivid fuchsia accent to disrupt the somber aura. There’s no denying the gender imbalance in the DJ world, and Cathy herself had brought to Carol Anne’s attention that “there is never anywhere for ‘the girlfriends’ to hang out” in record stores. “There needed to be a better environment for listening to and purchasing music,” recognised Carol Anne.

The terminals were positioned at the periphery of the small rectangular space to allow constant visual access to all screens. That left space for a central ottoman, placed with wireless laptop users in mind, and a curved platform seating area at the shop front. The latter, lined with shag pile wall hangings and bold, flat cushions, references the 1960s idea of interior design as art installation, as well as the concept of lounging that accompanied the furniture-scapes of the era. The flat cushions offer a visual reference to vinyl sleeves.

To address the issue of reverberation, Carol Anne applied a unique sound-deadening product to the walls and ceiling. Echopanel (produced by Australian textile designer and manufacturer Woven Image) is composed entirely of recyclable PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate – the plastic with which many drink bottles are made), such that the one material is both the substrate and surface. Her application of it to the ceiling plane was the first use of the material beyond the vertical, so some time was spent working through fixing issues. It was time well spent, though, given the acoustic returns.

The ivinyl logo of concentric and overlapping circles succinctly represents the grooves on a record while also hinting at interaction and exchange. Carol Anne incorporated it in several situations – routed into sheets of echopanel (with imperfect “hairy edges” intentionally retained), applied to the front of slushie machines, and translated into an acrylic window display. “Shop windows in Perth often aren’t made to do enough work in engaging passersby and transferring information,” said Carol Anne. As such, she provided the catalyst for a system of transaction. “People often tag their computers with soft toys and iconic cartoons,” she continued, “so with the figurines in the window, we’re trying to make that act a part of the experience of ivinyl. People might steal the figurines, or even chose to leave their own toy there. We hope to encourage a transfer of information.”

Despite a year of very successful operation, some observers of ivinyl are confused. “We’re an enigma. People talk about us but some people don’t know what we are,” explains Miller. “Others have been asking, ‘Why isn’t this happening in Melbourne? Why do you want to do that in Perth?’” Though a smaller city is bound to have a smaller music scene, logic would suggest that Internet communication is all the more valuable in an isolated location. Certainly, its value can be maximised in a place where ‘a sense of community’ has not yet entirely dissolved into planners’ jargon, but can be self-propagating.

ivinyl is located at 2/226 Oxford Street, Leederville, Perth, Australia and www.ivinyl.com.au