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Discipline Mag recently caught up with Melbourne underground metal mainstay Lewis Fischer (of Altars/Ex-Ignivomous) to discuss his huge undertaking in running the online record store Blacksound Records. We chatted about the origins of the store, their current exciting plans with opening a physical store up and a bunch of other topics.
1. Hey man thanks heaps for doing this interview so I was keen to just get a bit
of background to start off, When did you start Blacksound? What was the
general goal with starting the store.
Thanks for having me! Blacksound Records officially launched online on March 11, 2024. I’d been working on the store intensely for several months in the lead up to that, but the idea itself had been manifesting for years before I decided to commit to it.
I’ve been fortunate to travel the world as a musician, and visit a ton of cool record stores along the way. Getting to visit a physical store and browse the racks has always felt special to me.
Growing up in Adelaide, I would get genuinely excited about making a trip to Melbourne so that I could visit Missing Link Records. I have some incredible records and CDs in my collection that I purchased there — my favourite being a squishy soap-box Japanese pressing of the Boris album ‘Smile’ on CD. The
packaging is unique, and the album has a completely different mix and track order to the other pressings of that release.
There’s a ton of really great record stores in Melbourne and Australia more broadly who do what they do well, but I felt there was a significant and increasingly widening gap in the market for the more weird, niche and underground music out there today. Unless a store has someone on staff who’s really into this stuff, they often receive a bland glossing over.
Paired with the rising cost of shipping making it prohibitively expensive for a lot of people to be able to purchase music online from bands and labels overseas, I felt the problem had seriously compounded.
So, I wanted to solve that. I also wanted to feel the magic of being able to visit a store and flip through the racks again (and to find stuff I actually liked).
2. What sort of stuff do you stock? How do you generally decide what is worth selling to people? (Is it more of a friend recommendation vibe where you listen to everything in stock? Or is it more that you’ve got labels you trust so you’re comfortable stocking stuff).
I listen to almost everything I order in. I love the classics as much as the next person, but I’ve always been much more interested in what’s happening now. I want to be at and know what’s going on at the coalface. So, I have my thumb on the pulse and am constantly reading about what’s coming out and listening to new music.
If I know a label well and like what they do, I’m likely to stock everything they
release. So, it’s a curated selection; but everyone’s taste is unique. I will order in records I don’t necessarily like, as long as it fits the vibe and I know other people are into what that artist is doing. I’m not interested in and won’t stock just anything though, it has to really meld with the store and what it’s all about. A lot of what we stock at the moment falls into the categories of either underground metal, noise, grind, punk, sludge, crust, experimental or an adjacent sort of genre.
There’s a few areas that I’m hoping to expand on significantly once we’re in the shop. There’s a lot of weird jazz, classical and electronic-based music for example that I think finds a home amongst all this. Think Bohren and Der Club Gore, or acts like Neptunian Maximalism who’s brand of weird avant-garde black metal-adjacent dark jazz is put out by Italy’s I, Voidhanger Records.
3. And how can people buy your stock so far, is that mostly online and at
shows? People can purchase online from www.blacksound.com.au. We ship daily at very low rates, and offer free shipping on orders over $150. If you’re in Melbourne and surrounds, most packages arrive the next business day. We ship everywhere in specially designed deluxe mailers to protect from busted corners and seam splits and so far we have a perfect record.
Once the shop opens, we’ll be offering ‘click and collect’ style in-store pickups. And of course, people can come in and browse.
4. What are some of the highlights/challenges so far?
People’s enthusiasm, support and encouragement have all enabled the store to grow very quickly. I’m eternally grateful to have met so many people now who’ve been absolutely stoked about the store, either that I’m stocking releases from their label or customers who are ecstatic that it exists and that they can purchase these records locally.
5. So some exciting news you announced last week that I wanted to ask about, the new physical store you’re opening up. what is happening with the commercial property you are looking at?
We’ve secured a commercial lease for a shop front on Sydney Road in Brunswick. We get the keys and begin fitting the shop out on September 30. I’m hoping we can turn the task around quickly and open the shop before the end of October.
6. How can people support you in with the new store?
The space has been secured, and we’re now faced with the task of fitting it out.
There’s certain things like electrical that aren’t safe or legal to do yourself. There’s paint, wood, and when you add it all up it costs a lot of money. There isn’t a cheap or DIY alternative for everything. We also need to be able to turn the shop around and get it open pretty quickly.
We currently have over 1839 records in-stock. So, if there’s something you’ve been wanting to purchase for a while and have been putting it off, now is the time if you have the means to do so. Every purchase, no matter how small, goes a long way to helping us cover expenses and get the doors open.
7. Awesome as a couple of final questions, I was wondering What records are
you spinning at the moment?
Wormed – Omegon, Reveal – Scissorgod, Concrete Winds – S/T, plus the new Black Curse track that just dropped from their album due late October.
8. One last question, is there anything in your collection that you’d consider a
crucial listen that everyone should check out? (I know I went pretty hard on that Dream Unending/Worm split i found through your site).
There’s far too many to choose from, but I’d probably pick my original pressing of Demilich’s Nespithe. That’s an all timer.
My suggestion to people is: Listen to everything. Seek what you haven’t heard. (Re)discover old sounds. Be uncomfortable.
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