Featured Store: Tram Records

A little shop with a big heart based in ‘The Saints’ area of the town centre, Tram Records concentrate on selling new music from independent labels and are great promotors of the local music scene.

Crispin Bretts was a big music fan and was frustrated that Ipswich did not have an independent record shop selling new vinyl so he decided to do something about it. He had plenty of experience in the music industry previously working at HMV, Virgin, Zavvi and Mute Records. With a limited budget, he started off small scale. The shop measures 1.75m x 2.45m which is an incredible 46 square feet and is worth a visit due to being the smallest record shop in the UK.

Crispin wants his customers to find records they’ve not heard of before and give a new sound a chance. His goal is for Tram to be a place where people meet up to swap recommendations and discover new sounds.

The name came about as trams used to run down the St Peters Street were the shop is based. They were once thought of as out dated just like vinyl was. They are now being now being revived just as Vinyl is.

Crispin opened on RSD 2016. It was a day he will never forget as the ribbon was cut by his daughters Ffion and Flo. The shop has attracted a lot of goodwill from the Ipswich music community. Pay it a visit so you can say you have shopped at the UK’s smallest record shop.

I asked Crispin which releases from Proper and Essential he is looking forward to:
I have got some fantastic ‘Record Store Day’ releases coming in and I am really looking forward to the big day. A couple of RSD releases that I will be buying for myself are Marconi Union – Ghost stations remix, I am looking forward to hearing what can be done with the remixes of one of the best albums of 2016. HMLTD – to the door, A Great track on 7” for RSD with influences from all over. A great modern pop song as they should be. Twilight Sad – 14 Autumns, 15 Winters, I missed this album first time round. So glad they re-pressed it. I am enjoying the new album from Diet Cig – Swear I’m Good at This, A great indie album. If you have not heard it you won’t regret checking it out.

If you would like to be Proper’s Featured Store, contact Graham Jones