A red awning lettered with the words vinyl, CDs and DVDs bought and sold marks the spot on Essex Road where Flashback began, in a short parade of shops set back from the pavement north of Islington Green.
Background / History
Mark Burgess opened the first Flashback here in 1997, with records on the ground floor and vintage clothing in the basement. By 2000 the business had grown into two units facing each other across Essex Road, one selling vinyl downstairs while the other dealt in CDs, VHS, DVDs and computer games. Records won out. Crouch End followed in 2006, when Flashback took over the premises of Listen Records, and Shoreditch came in 2014, making a chain of three shops that all buy, sell and trade across the counter, with a record label running alongside them. Eliza Rose, who reached number one in the UK singles chart in 2022, started working here at fourteen and stayed on and off for a decade. Time Out has named Flashback among the best shops in London.
What You’ll Find
The split between the floors is clear. Ground level holds new vinyl and current reissues alongside CDs, DVDs and racks of used discs worth picking through. Down the stairs is the second-hand and collectors’ floor, where LP bins run the length of the room and long boxes of seven-inch singles sit beneath walls papered in old picture sleeves and company labels. First pressings and hard-to-find releases are a genuine specialism rather than a sideline. Jazz breaks into its own sub-sections, Euro Jazz and UK Jazz among them, while soul, hip hop, reggae, rock, pop, punk and electronic music all hold their ground, and the world music divider apologises for its own title before explaining that the section spans international popular and folk musics along with ethnographic field recordings. Cassettes, books and collectibles fill the corners, and stock is bought and traded as well as sold, with orders shipped worldwide.
Experience / Atmosphere
Both floors are densely stocked without feeling chaotic, and the filing is good enough that you can work fast or settle in for an hour. Gig posters and album sleeves cover the walls upstairs, a mirror ball hangs above the racks, and the place feels lived in rather than styled. Staff know the stock in real detail and will talk about it for as long as you like, but nobody hovers or steers you towards a purchase. Doors open at ten every day bar Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day, closing at seven, with a nine o’clock start for Record Store Day each April.
Why Visit
- A basement given over entirely to second-hand and collectors’ vinyl, including deep runs of seven-inch singles
- Real strength in first pressings and hard-to-find releases
- Thorough genre filing that rewards a long dig, from Euro jazz to Afrobeat, high life and field recordings
- New vinyl, CDs and DVDs upstairs, so current releases and old finds sit under one roof
- Records, CDs and cassettes bought and traded over the counter, which keeps the racks moving
- Open every day, ten until seven, with an early start on Record Store Day
Summary
Close to thirty years in the same spot has given Flashback Islington a depth of stock that only comes from buying steadily and knowing what to keep. Call in for a new release upstairs or spend an afternoon on the basement bins; either way, this is a shop built around the pleasure of finding things.
