April 4, 2025
“Crate-digging (Verb): to shop for rare, vintage, or obscure recordings especially by searching through crates of secondhand merchandise.”
There are few things as satisfying in life as carefully placing your favourite 12-inch on the decks, hearing the gentle crackle and hiss of the record starting to play, and enjoying the visual experience of the artwork and reading the liner notes. From the Wax-Cylinder to the Phonograph, lovers of music the world over have searched far and wide for nuggets of musical gold, building their collection piece by piece. At Syn, we are fortunate to be located in some of the world’s greatest cities for record collectors, ripe for picking the most eclectic examples of music committed to vinyl.
To celebrate this, we set out on a mission to celebrate the crate-diggers of Syn. In Tokyo, Hong Kong, London and Los Angeles, we documented the team searching high and low to find great music for our clients around the globe. Syn’s music curation team provides background music for luxury hotels, restaurants and corporate spaces around the globe, and with an almost endless selection of music to choose from, how do we connect spaces with the perfect musical match? From flicking through vinyl on the streets of Tokyo to digital crate-digging on streaming platforms, let’s take a deep dive into our record collection and how we search far and wide to discover what the worlds sounds like, and pair it with spaces around the globe.
One of many beautiful things about being a global team is the inevitable sharing of different musical reference points. Before the days of streaming and digitally accessible music, your local record store was the access point to releases old and new, and It’s striking how these contrasting musical upbringings shape our perspective on music.
Tokyo’s FLASH disk ranch record store is located in Shimokitazawa, and has been a go-to spot for Syn Executive Music Director, Alan Mawdsley, for over 20-years.
This local hidden gem holds the key to unlocking weird and wonderful records from days past.
Nearby is LIKE A FOOL RECORDS, next stop for Alan and Kaz (Syn Tokyo Music Producer and Drummer of kill me Elk), who set out to to busy their fingers and dig through the crates of Tokyo’s finest.
In Alan’s words, “I probably visited for the first time around 20 years ago. One thing that has changed over the years is their selection of domestic Japanese music. When I first started going there, like most record shops here in Tokyo, they had hardly any Japanese records, but in the past five years or so with the rise in popularity of Japanese record here and overseas they have expanded their selection and it keeps growing which is great!”
6,000 miles away in the London suburb of Barnes, Syn’s Executive Business Director, Benji Compston, is tucked away in another local hideout, “Olympic Studio Records”. Volunteer run and owned by the former Olympic Studios (where the likes of ‘Led Zeppelin III’ and ‘Sticky Fingers’ were recorded), this small record store is full undiscovered gems. Filled with pieces of rock and roll history, including a rug once owned by Charlie Watts, this amazing store is filled with albums old and new, lovingly curated by the team of Roger and Steve. With Syn clients in the U.K. including Claridge’s Hotel in Mayfair, London’s rich tapestry of record stores make it the perfect place to widen our repertoire and develop concepts for clients in London and beyond. Curating background music for clients in hospitality exposes Syn to a wide variety of genres; from minimal-house and lounge to Afrobeat and Ethio-Jazz (and everything in-between), and this is where the heart of truly bespoke music curation lies.
There is no ‘cut and paste’ formula to creating playlists to elevate guest experience, and without an understanding of a wide variety of musical tastes and styles, it is easy to follow stereotypes of ‘elevator music’ or ‘background jazz’. As one part of the Syn team opens their ears to a world of music courtesy of record stores like ‘Olympic Records’, there is always a creative brief being developed at a hotel or restaurant somewhere across the world!
Heading west from London, Syn Country Manager, Derek McNeill and Production Assistant, Antonio David, are exploring Los Angeles’ finest. Visiting High Fidelity in Culver City (Owned by Ray) and Record Surplus in Santa Monica (Owned by Chris), Derek and Antonio are playlist-building for U.S. based clients including Maybourne Beverly Hills, The Fairmont Miramar, Eleven Madison Park and The Boca Raton Resort. From ‘Afro-Harping’ by Dorothy Ashby to a remastered version of Duran Duran’s self-titled first album, Derek and Antonio take home a selection of great vinyl, inspiring tastes and developing concepts for playlists later down the line.
As the sun sets over Los Angeles, Derek and Antonio even bump into acclaimed music journalist and interviewer ‘Nardwuar The Human Serviette’ as he interviews Timothée Chalamet ahead of the release of ‘A Complete Unknown’. A successful trip all round!
From Tokyo to London to Los Angeles, we now cross the Pacific and arrive in Hong Kong, where Syn CEO and Creative Director, Nick Wood, is visiting historic Sham Shui Po record store, Vinyl Hero. Run by Vietnamese local legend and vinyl collector, Paul Au, ‘Vinyl Hero’ is celebrated as one of Hong Kong’s most iconic musical destinations.
Paul Au came to Hong Kong to escape the perils of the Vietnam War in February 1975, arriving in Hong Kong just in time for the golden age of Cantonese Pop. Then a British Colony (until the hand-over in 1997), settling in Hong Kong also gave Paul Au an access point to Western pop records of the day, and inspired him to invest in a Harley Davidson as his method of transport!
A regular visitor to Japan, Paul Au has brought over 2,000 records back from Tokyo on one of his many visits, and his store is floor-to-ceiling full of treasures from the 1960s - 1980s.
As Nick and Paul swap musical anecdotes and pick through a sea of vinyl, it’s clear to see why this small store in an otherwise somewhat deprived neighbourhood is one of Hong Kong’s most treasured spots.
Trusted by clients across three continents to provide culturally relevant and stylistically spotless background music for restaurants, hotel lobbies, corporate office spaces, gyms, spas and retail spaces, Syn’s journey to discover what the world sounds doesn’t stop here; it’s an ever developing journey to become tastemakers and musical explorers.
‘From Tokyo to LA - What The World Sounds Like’ will be available at www.syn.world and across social media platforms in April 2025, produced by Hiromi Yanagi.
