Breaks

Breaks on vinyl: broken rhythms for the dance floor

In short: Breaks relies on broken, syncopated drum rhythms – played, programmed or, very often, sampled from the drum breaks of older funk and soul records. Coming out of hip-hop, it became a club music of its own in the nineties, above all in Britain. The Vinyl Room currently has 43 breaks records.

What are breaks?

From Mo' Wax to Vienna: the compilation “Headz”, dZihan & Kamien with “Refreaked”, Poland’s Skalpel with “Konfusion” and Luke Vibert with “We Hear You”.

Between rock and club: BT with “Movement In Still Life”, LCD Soundsystem with “45:33” and the New York band Liquid Liquid from the early eighties.

What to look for

Among our breaks records the nineties and 2000s are the largest groups; most are British and American editions; label, catalogue number and year of release help you tell which edition you have – it’s noted with each copy.

From our stock

First pressings

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FAQ

What are breaks? Music with broken, syncopated drum rhythms, often from sampled breaks.

Where do the breakbeats come from? Often from funk and soul records – short passages where mainly the drums play; they can also be played live or programmed.

What is “Headz”? A compilation from the British label Mo' Wax in the nineties.

Which breaks records do you have? Here, for example, dZihan & Kamien’s “Refreaked” and Luke Vibert’s “We Hear You”.