“There are only two kinds of music, good and the bad,” goes the motto at Paris’s Heartbeat Vinyl. And wax worshippers have become well accustomed to finding the former within this cozy and much adored store in Paris’s fashionable 11th arrondissement. Eschewing trendy new releases and reissues, Heartbeat’s owner Melik Bencheikh operates in the time-tested tradition of other top-tier global rare groove emporiums: handpicking the vintage vinyl across genres, with an emphasis on the timeless and elusive, i.e. “all things beautiful on 33 or 45.” It’s an approach that’s won Heartbeat a devoted clientele, not only with locals like Dimitri From Paris and DJ Deep, but internationally as well, as Americans like Geo-logy and DJ Spinna can be counted on to feel the Heartbeat whenever passing through in the City of Lights.
