RECORD Store Day is just around the corner and an independent music shop owner cannot wait for the occasion.

Jimi Coppack, 30, owns Electric Church in Winsford - one of the only record shops in the area taking part.

Jimi said: “There’s only 250 stores in the country taking part. It’s a bit of a cost but I’ve been planning it since January.”

Last year marked a drastic change in music sales, with vinyl and CD beating digital downloads for the first time since in seven years.

Despite the convenience of digital downloads and music streaming sites, for Jimi and many record collectors, the depth of sound on records is hard to beat.

Jimi said: “I get people coming in who are absolute fanatics, normally the person with them will say ‘I don’t get it, a song is a song so it doesn’t matter’. It obviously does.”

One aspect of record collecting that often doesn’t get considered is the individual art gallery a collector can obtain by simply buying their favourite albums on vinyl.

He said: “I love changing the artwork in the shop daily, putting different albums out on the wall. Don’t get me wrong, digital is fantastic you can’t put a record on when you’re going for a jog.

“Some of the artwork is just too iconic though like Wish You Were Here, whether you know the album or not you’d recognise the cover with the two guys shaking hands with one of them on fire.”

Jimi has been busy getting everything organised at the Electric Church including some live performances.

He said: “There’s a space in front of my shop for parking, I tried to get it closed so we could have a stage there. If I could have sorted that my band would have probably played there, I would have been able to get some heavier bands as well with more amplifiers.”

Record Store Days sees an influx of limited edition pressings of iconic albums and because they’re only on sale for the one day, getting one of these can be quite difficult.

Luckily for Jimi this was not the case for him last year.

He said: “I got the Hendrix Smash Hits last year. I got there and as soon as I saw it and knew I was getting it I was absolutely made up.

“It’s got alternative artwork on the front and that was the artwork on the poster for the original release.

“It’s a fairly common Hendrix album but to see the album recovered in the poster artwork I just thought I had to have it.”

Record Store Day is Saturday, April 21 and Jimi has plenty planned to make it one to remember at Electric Church, including a DJ set from Simon Jones of The Verve.