Close Up Things is a Producer/DJ and all round music lover . As well as his own productions he is one half of music projects Small Hours, Fine Print.

When doing the above he is an active member of East London based sound system @albionhifi and resident DJ for poetry collective Hammer & Tongue Hackney.

Look out for his show on @bmc.radio and new blog about a box of cassettes called Helical Memory.

Be sure to give him a follow 👉 @closeupthings

Each week we will be taking a dip into the crates and minds of some of the digging scenes most prolific collectors.

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DIGGR: What were your earliest musical influences?

Close Up Things: “My house growing up was full of music. My dad’s got great taste in music would make me cassette tapes of stuff he’d seen me react to. Mixing up all sorts; kids songs, soundtracks to TV shows, soul, rock n roll so I was jumping around the front room to those like a nutter.

My mum dancing to salsa merengue and Cumbia in the house and Capital Gold on the school run are also very strong memories.

D: Strangest place you found a record…

C: “Bit of a dream story – my girlfriend at the time told me there were 2 big boxes of records on the side of the road in Hackney near where we lived about 10 years ago. It contained so many records, all genres Reggae, Disco, Soul, Hip Hop, dub…you name it. They were all in varying degrees of condition. It must’ve belonged to someone with a massive collection or seller as there were loads of doubles, weird bootlegs and edits.

It basically started my collection and opened me up to artists I hadn’t heard before there were about 200 12’s and 80 7 inches it was pretty amazing and I was incredibly lucky to happen upon it!

D: Name a song to soundtrack the sunshine…

C: “Eeeesh that’s difficult but I think I can remember some near perfect summer moments hearing Acid Raindrops – People Under The Stairs or 93 Til Infinity by the Souls of Mischief

D: What is one of your favourite pieces of sleeve art?

C: “Nightmares on Wax – Smokers Delight. When we were young a mate had obtained a bunch of really good records off some random guy by trading them for a butterfly knife – really weird and dumb on the guy’s part (and my mate he was absolute moron at that time but weren’t we all) as those 20 records are worth a whole bunch now. Anyway this was one of them and I just used to love staring at the artwork and would try and convince him to give it to me, to no avail. My copy’s framed in my studio now. I still love that record as well. Some great hazy smokey memories.

D: Weirdest most quirky record buying memory?

LD: “Over lockdown I connected with a guy selling some stuff from a house clearance, initially to purchase some nice speakers and a turntable but he had loads of records as well so every other week for a while he would come round the corner from the flat and open up the boot full of records.

My flatmate and I would dig and end up buying entire boxes of 45s with some great bits. I ended up finding some mint early mono Hendrix and Pink Floyd in those. A proper exciting boost at what was a challenging time with pretty much fuck all going on, needless to say I was hyped for those! Kept the speakers as well – they sound amazing.“