Flying halfway across the world to sit in a snow-covered, mountaintop
barn with a revered guru teaching you how to hand-cut vinyl records
sounds like something from a Wes Anderson film – but for
Melbourne fellow Nathan Sawford, it’s the true story of how
his business, Small Run Vinyl, began.
“One day my friend got a record in the mail with a poem he’d written
for a girlfriend,” Nathan says. “I was like, ‘How did you get just one
record done? I didn’t even know that was possible.’ He told me he
got it from a guy overseas, so I did some googling and contacted
the man who sold the machine that made it. To buy one, I had to
actually fly to Germany with cash.”
Nathan’s partner Holly Canham, co-owner of Small Run, remembers
the moment vividly. “I was having a panic attack the whole time he
was over there, because he had no reception and some guy from the
internet had just picked him up in a truck and driven him through
rural Germany in the snow,” she laughs. “He couldn’t contact me
for days, and I was like, ‘Oh my god, what have we done?’”
Thankfully, there was no funny business – just an intensive crash
course on how to lathe-cut records in a place called Friedrichshafen.
Nathan trained for up to 14 hours each day to learn the tricks of
the trade, then brought his experience back to Melbourne to begin
cutting records for his own band.Five years later, Small Run is a
full-time gig – Nathan takes care of the technical stuff, while Holly
masterminds design and branding – and it’s filling a gap in the
market for emerging musicians who can’t afford the minimum order
quantities demanded by most pressing plants.
Lathe-cutting is a meticulous process where each record is engraved
individually and in real-time, so, if a band wants 50 records made,
Nathan sits and listens to the same recording 50 times over,
ensuring there are no bumps as his machine does its thing.
One skip and he has to start again; nailing the craft has been
a process of trial and error. “We did a trip to the tip a year-and-a-
half ago, dropping off maybe 2000 blank records that were ruined,”
Nathan says. “There’s one single groove through the whole thing- if it has a skip halfway, you just have to throw it out.”
It’s not just bands who get wax cut by Small Run, though – Nathan
and Holly have created all kinds of weird and wonderful records for
their varied clientele, including a recreation of Carl Sagan’s famous
Voyager Golden Records. As for the most memorable order?
“There was a guy who did a thing where he dropped various plates
and ceramics on the ground,” Nathan recalls. “There were like
30 tracks on a seven-inch, each track going for three seconds,
and it was just like... explosions.”With the option of ordering just one lone record, Small Run is often
approached by romantics and nostalgics looking to create unique
gifts for loved ones. “We’ve done a few where someone has found
a track of their grandparents singing a song when they were young,
and they’ve wanted to put it onto vinyl as a birthday gift,” Holly says.
“A lot of people like having a karaoke song going in the background
as they sing for their boyfriend or girlfriend, which is pretty cute,”
Nathan adds.Their newfound skills have also given the couple the opportunity to
create something special for their own family – a keepsake for their
first child, Scout, who they welcomed earlier this year. “When our
baby was born, Nathan made a tiny little record and put her
heartbeat on it,” Holly says. “It goes for like 30 seconds,” Nathan
adds. “When I posted it online, I had a bunch of people asking about
it, so now they’re just waiting for their own kids to be born.”nathan sawford and holly canham
cut vinyl records one by one.
WORDS GISELLE AU-NHIEN NGUYENsmall run vinyl
my project