DJ Muro loves vinyl. Always has. He never gave up on the stuff, even during its unfashionable years when CDs and, later, digital downloads were trumpeted as the record industry’s White Knight.
Muro isn’t the only true believer. Global vinyl revenues continued grew by 4.6% in 2024, for the 18th consecutive year of growth.
At the back-end of last week, Muro (real name: Takayoshi Murota) played to heaving rooms in Sydney and Melbourne over two nights, playing vinyl-only sets, mixing tunes dug out from deep in his imposing collection. Muro the vinyl evangelist, playing to his church.
“When music becomes a physical thing – it’s more than just sound,” Muro tells Tone Deaf. “For someone like me, who’s all about vinyl, the whole experience matters – admiring the artwork, taking out the record, and carefully placing the needle on it. That’s something digital formats just don’t have.”
Guests at the Muro shows included Akira Isogawa, Alex Dimitriades and Jaguar Jonez in Sydney and Senator Briggs, Beci Orpin and Raph Rashid in Melbourne, along with independent record store owners and fans, for what was his first visit to these shores in 12 years.
Though no one needs an excuse to party, the gigs doubled as a giveaway of a small batch of records “first pressed” at a famed plant in Japan, part of the Kirin Ichiban x Deus Records collaboration.
Aside from the memories, Muro’s party people walked away with a First Pressed limited edition DJ Muro x Kirin Ichiban vinyl and a Deus limited edition t-shirt.
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The brewer gave “complete freedom” to create the track, which Muro did with his previous project, Olive All. “We were inspired by Kirin’s production factory and the record pressing plant while working on it,” explains the man known as The King of Diggin’.
The collaboration came about when Kirin’s Australian team out to Muro directly, “which was such an honor,” he adds.
The 12” record was pressed at the Toyokasai plant, which has operated since 1959. “It’s the only large-scale record pressing plant in Asia, and Japan is really proud of it,” he enthuses. “I’ve worked with them for years, so it… felt like the perfect choice.”
Of course, Muro worked the fresh cut into his east coast sets.
