Retailer spotlight: peasantries + pleasantries | Salt Lake City
Posted on September 20 2019
Opened in 2019 by Parker Yates, peasantries + pleasantries a Salt Lake City record store is a beautiful place to explore new sounds and experience music on vinyl. We worked with peasantries + pleasantries to create all of their custom record dividers- which are all very unique to this space! We spoke to Parker to learn more about his new endeavor. Read on to learn a bit more about the record store!
peasantries + pleasantries
804 South 800 East Salt Lake City, UT
What does your shop specialize in?
The shop is a (pleasant) mixture of both esoteric and marginal music from all over the world, or as I like to specifically say: "a selection of "relatively" sweet pop/rock + "mostly" elegant esoteric music.". My focus is to bring in and specialize in avant-garde, minimalist, ambient, new age, and Japanese music in general.
Any product/brand/label you're particularly excited about right now?
The Séance Centre umbrella (SC, Concentric Circles, Musique Plastique, Métron, etc) are proverbially killing it. Seminal archivals + resissues, vital unearthings, and invigorating new releases. The RVNG Intl family (RVNG, ReRVNG, FRKWYS, Freedom To Spend, etc) aren't messing around either. Archival + reissues, collaborations, and new releases; they do it all and with real intent. Kranky records, or as any respectable enthusiast would call them: old faithful; are still bringing the real heat.
Unseen Worlds are drinking from a fine artesian well with the calibre of reissues they're dropping. Geographic North are an extremely special limited run label. Aesthetically pleasing and finely packaged releases that you're sure to miss out on purchasing merely for blinking. Recital Program are a west coast based label releasing elegant + eloquent archival + reissues of the avant-garde, contemporary classical, and minimal varieties. Palto Flats, reissues and new releases spanning the realms of singular pop, electronic, and "experimental" music. Empire of Signs are not to be ignored.
Three for three on Kankyō ongaku archival + reissue releases. Keep up the strong work Spencer and Maxwell. Overseas, Blume (Avant-garde + Minimal archival reissues), dauw label (see Geographic North, though dauw tends to focus hard on ambient, electronic, minimal, and loop based sounds), Faraway Press (Andrew Chalk, I needn't say anything more), IIKKI (creating dialog between and visual artist and musical artist; some of the finest ambient/minimalist (limited) releases out there), Music From Memory (leftfield archival releases), Shelter Press (mixed medium imprint label + arguably the most important new release record label), Soave (Italian Minimalism archivals + reissues), WRWTFWW (the name says it all: reissuing and releasing whatever the f**k they want). I have worked diligently to keep all of these labels stocked in my shop.
What album/artist are you currently spinning in store?
In no particular order...
Slow Attack Ensemble's "Delay Music"
Félicia Atkinson's "The Flower and The Vessel"
JAB's "Erg herbe" N Chambers' "Air Example"
M Sage's "Catch a Blessing"
Georgia's "Immute" Meitei's "Komachi"
Ruth Garbus' "Kleinmeister"
Helado Negro's "This Is How You Smile" R Beny's "echo verse"
Visible Cloaks, Yoshio Ojima, & Satsuki Shibano's "serenitatem"
What's a good lunch spot or place to grab a drink nearby?
Pizza Nono: a high quality pizzeria, serving up quality/artisanal/traditional (fresh) ingredients.
Brass Smoothies: high(est) quality smoothies made -for anyone- with fresh/natural/locally sourced ingredients
Anything else you want to share about the shop, plans for the future, etc?
I'm working hard expand the scope and umbrella of peasantries + pleasantries but need to focus on growing the brand itself before tackling my expanded dreams and schemes. But if you must know: 1) look for future live event curations and one-off special performances from artists who otherwise wouldn't play in Salt Lake City. 2) a limited run record label. One day I would love to open a proper kissaten (café) w/ side record shop. Until then, if you find yourself in Salt Lake City, please reach out and/or come through the shop.