by Liz Ohanesian

In a time when record shops are closing on a monthly basis (goodbye Sea Level Records and Go Boy), it's nice to see that one L.A. spot is celebrating its first anniversary.

We made our first excursion to Turntable Lab for the store's birthday party, an event featuring a live performance from L.A. hip-hop progenitor Egyptian Lover, and were pleasantly surprised with the store's offerings.  This non-descript outlet is located on a crowded stretch of Fairfax Boulevard, across the street from Canter's, and, despite of its small size, boasts an excellent selection of music and gear.

Given its name, it should be obvious that Turntable Lab caters to DJs.  As such, the gear revolves around tricks of the DJ booth.  Aside from the usual selection of turntables, CDJs, headphones, needles and record bags, Turntable Lab features production material galore.  From Korg synths to Ableton upgrades, you can find your home studio necessities here.  I was particularly intrigued by the Gemini iKey ($89) and iKey Plus ($179), which allows users to record any sound and transfer the material to an iPod or hard drive.

As far as music goes, the focus here is on vinyl. The CD section is considerably smaller in size and focuses primarily on new dance full-lengths and DJ mixes. The vinyl selection is well-edited.  Shoppers will not need to sift through dust-filled crates to find what they need. The focus here is on club-oriented music.  Rock titles generally fall into the indie-dance category, with a heavy presence from bands like the Rapture, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Belle and Sebastian and CSS.  House and techno feature heavily into the mix and are divided by subgenres and record labels.  For those of you trying to keep up on Ed Banger releases, Turntable Lab should be the first stop on your shopping excursion.  The selection is more bountiful than certain other major vinyl suppliers.  The extensive hip-hop section consists of new and old school releases.

We left Turntable Lab's soiree with more than just a new memory of finally getting to see Egyptian Lover live.  I picked up new releases from Justice on both vinyl and CD and a Presets 12" with a Simian Mobile Disco remix.  My cohort found the soundtrack for Fantastic Planet, after an age-old search, and J.Rocc's mixed CD, Yo! 45 Raps.

Turntable Lab, 424 N. Fairfax Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036, (323) 782-0173, Turntablelab.com