Inspired by Japan’s iconic disc guides: four genres on 1500 records, documented by the diggers who found them.
~ Courtesy Champagne House Media
BROOKLYN, NY — October 29, 2026 — Dust & Grooves Editions announces Vinyl Digest: A Collector’s Field Guide, the first English-language record guide series modeled on the disc guides that Japanese publishers and record shops have produced for decades. Four volumes published simultaneously on November 30, 2026, covering spiritual and cosmic jazz; African funk, soul & disco; gospel soul; and folk, rock and psychedelia in South and Southeast Asia. Together they document 1,500 records, many in print for the first time, selected by the DJs, label founders and reissue producers who brought this music back into circulation.
Crafted to inspire exploration, Vinyl Digest serves novice music lovers hunting for fresh discoveries just as seamlessly as it guides veteran diggers and scholars diving into niche musical histories. It lets you chart paths through overlooked movements, uncover links across distinct global sounds, or compile targets for your upcoming record shop run. Designed equally for digital listeners mapping out streaming playlists and passionate archivists hunting down pristine original wax, each installment functions as an inviting launchpad and a timeless handbook.
The series was conceived by Paz and Manu Boubli, the Paris DJ, producer and co-founder of Superfly Records, who traces the idea back to Japanese guides like Jazz Next Standard.
Alongside creators Paz and Boubli, the series is overseen by Series Editor Andrew Mason, a founding editor of Wax Poetics Magazine, which for two decades defined how crate diggers write about records. Each book gives every record its own annotated entry with label, year and country, a rarity score from 1 to 5, and a checkbox for the reader’s want list.
Each also includes an extended interview with its authors, a survey of the essential compilations, and dozens of guest “Selects By” playlists from DJs, label heads, scholars and musicians, among them Four Tet, Caribou, Gilles Peterson, Thurston Moore, King Britt, Rich Medina and Wayne Hemingway.
The Four Volumes
#1 · Spiritual & Cosmic Jazz — Amir Abdullah & Manu Boubli · 400 records From Mary Lou Williams and A Love Supreme to the musician-owned labels that pressed this music on their own terms: Strata-East, Black Jazz, Tribe, El Saturn. Abdullah, founder of 180 Proof Records, restored Detroit’s Strata Records catalog.
#2 · African Funk, Soul & Disco — Manu Boubli & Uchenna Ikonne · 400 records From raw 1970s funk and Afrobeat to Nigerian boogie and South African disco. Ikonne, the historian behind Comb & Razor Sound, helped lead the revival of vintage African music. Cover art by Lemi Ghariokwu, designer of twenty-six Fela Kuti album covers.
#3 · Gospel Soul — Greg Belson · 400 records The sound that split the church in two, when soul, funk and disco entered gospel in the 1960s through the ’80s. Belson, the Los Angeles DJ and compiler behind Divine Disco (Cultures of Soul) and The Time for Peace Is Now (Luaka Bop), maps a genre that has never had a book of its own.
#4 · Folk, Rock & Psychedelia in South & Southeast Asia — Chris Menist & Maft Sai · 300 records Thai molam, Pakistani film scores, Indonesian beat groups and Malaysian pop yeh yeh: the other half of the 1960s and ’70s conversation between East and West. Menist and Maft Sai are the co-founders of Paradise Bangkok.
Details
A5 softcover with a die-cut cover window · full color throughout · rarity scores, collector’s checkboxes, index and blank notes pages in every volume $35 / €35 / £30 each · Out November 30, 2026 from Dust & Grooves Editions.
PRE-ORDER NOW: http://dustandgrooves.com/vinyl-digest
About Dust and Grooves
Founded in 2008 by Brooklyn photographer and publisher Eilon Paz, Dust & Grooves is a book and online publication platform connecting a global community of record collectors. Its books, Dust & Grooves: Adventures in Record Collecting, Dust & Grooves Volume 2: Further Adventures in Record Collecting and Portables, have sold more than 45,000 copies.