Our physical store was opened at 323 Archway Road in November 2000 and was the project of musician Mark Wastell. Mark had been active in experimental music for 7 years and at the time felt that certain forms of music and record labels were not represented in London and the UK. He wished to create an environment where people could visit the store, listen to and purchase exclusively sourced, quality recordings, talk and exchange opinions with others. The retail floor, although compact, became home to countless record labels never before seen on record shop shelves in the UK.

The next initiative was a live concert series which commenced in February 2001. Subsequently there has been in excess of 140 in-store shows with notables such as Derek Bailey, Keith Rowe, Taku Sugimoto, Hugh Davies, John Butcher, Tetuzi Akiyama, Lasse Marhaug, Burkhard Beins and Eddie Prevost on the roster.

Audition, the Sound 323 radio show on Resonance FM, was the brainchild of Alastair Wilson, who together with Richard Pinnell, launched the show in January 2006. A complete play list and mp3s can been found at the Audition website www.auditionradio.info

Our other major achievement was the publication in January 2006 of Blocks of Consciousness and the Unbroken Continuum, a full-colour, hardback book and DVD project. A labour of love which took two years to compile, it quickly acquired cult status and became a must have requirement for anybody interested in under-the-radar, forward moving music.

Sound 323 has been the subject of a number of written articles and October 2005 saw the publication of a major feature in The Wire magazine by Clive Bell.

Sound 323 closed the door, for the final time, to it's physical shop on Saturday 18 October. We have made the decision to concentrate our time 100% on inter-net sales via www.sound323.com

8 years is one hell of an achievement and we are very proud to have made it that far. We have had the pleasure of serving literally 1000's of in-store customers during this time, staged 100's of in-store concerts and helped distribute some damn fine music.

As way of celebration we hosted an END OF AN ERA party with free live music throughout the afternoon. We'd like to say a big thanks you to all the musicians that took part; John Bisset, Seymour Wright, David Papapostolou, Max Eastley, Spencer Grady, Mark Browne, Dominic Lash, Steve Beresford, Ben Drew and John Wall.

Many thanks to everyone that has made Sound 323 such a special place over the years and we look forward to continuing in our new fashion for another 8 years.