This might just be my favourite record shop in London. Kristina Records does everything I want a record shop to do, pretty much perfectly: It's small, but with a broad selection, it's concise without sacrificing wild cards and weird gems and every time you go in you're seduced into spending every penny you have on you. If you're especially high on spending your hard-earned moolah, there's a wall of rare 7"s, casettes of old classics, zines and all the other usual business you'd expect from an establishment as discerning as this one.
A lot of 2nd hand vinyl places have floors that are too big, and many (many) feel the need to fill the space with bins full of dross, heavily used drum and bass 12"s and pop records that aren't quite old enough to count as retro yet. Kristina uses it's size to its advantage and stocks almost exclusively brilliant wax from all kinds of diverse, leftfield and underground genres. From blues to black metal, dub to disco, almost everything is worth shelling out for and I would defy any record collecting nerd like myself to leave this shop without a stack of hard to find gems or weird wild cards under their arm and a cheshire-cat of a grin on their face.
What's more, Kristina Records is fairly priced. Valuable records have their price tags, of course, but for every £30 The Slits LP you can pick up some interesting looking old compilation from Africa for something like £7. Recently I've seen a lot of copies of the absolute-class "Girls in The Garage" and "Las Vegas Grind" compilation series at really good prices.
The shop is located at the top end of East London's hyper-hip Dalston. Born and bred London purists (such as myself) will actually tell you that its in Stoke Newington but still, the closest tube station is indeed Dalston Kingsland on the London Overground line.
WHERE: 44 Stoke Newington rd, London, N16 7XJ
WHEN: Mon-Fri 12.00—20.00 / Sat-Sun 11.00—20.00
WHAT: Off the top of my head... African, Latin, Indian, Blues, Jazz, Soundtracks, Rockabilly, 50s pop, 60s pop, 80s pop, 70s rock, garage, psychedelia, punk & hardcore, heavy metal, new wave, no wave, indie & alternative, dub & reggea, disco, techno, house...there's definitely more I've missed...
WEBSITE: kristinarecords.com (very good online shop, too!)
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