Some people discover music. With Elrik — one of our Vinyleers — it was simply always there. Like breathing. Like movement. But there was a moment when everything fell into place.
A train. A Discman. And one album.
What he saw while listening
He was fifteen. On his way to his grandmother’s house. In his bag: a brand-new Discman, a gift from his father. And one CD, which he had just chosen himself at a shop in The Hague Central Station: Moby – Play.
He sat down. Headphones on. The train began to move.
And then it happened.
As the landscape slid by, another world unfolded in his ears. Not separate tracks, not background noise. But a story. Rhythm, atmosphere, feeling — a soundtrack to everything he saw and felt.
That moment stayed. Not the CD. Not the train. But the realization: music can change everything.
From that day on, music didn’t just accompany him — he followed the music.
The sound of earlier days
That train ride marked the beginning of something new. But the first seeds had been planted much earlier.
He grew up surrounded by sound. Classical. Folk. Psychedelic rock from his parents’ record shelves. Music that left space, told stories — sometimes soft, sometimes endlessly unfolding. Music whose layers he would only truly understand later.
But he enjoyed the sounds and the feelings they evoked. Sound he wanted more of, and wanted to share. At six years old, he received a cassette deck. Tapes he kept flipping, over and over again. No matter how often he heard one side, he always discovered something new.
One sound stood out: the violin. Young Elrik decided firmly: this is what I want. This has to happen. After a lot of pleading, he was allowed to take lessons — because it sounded so beautiful. Because it stirred something.
The first months were tough — blood, sweat, and tears — but he persisted. He joined an orchestra, and two years later played his first “gig” on television, on Telekids. Proud, trembling, playing.
Then even more music entered the living room: MTV. Video clips by The Prodigy and Fatboy Slim. Dancing with your friends as if your life depended on it.
It was never either–or. It was both–and. Violin and Firestarter. Silence and explosion.
Collecting to share
Around the age of eighteen, his father gave him two turntables and a mixer. From his aunt, he received a stack of records. The love for vinyl was born — love at first sound.
He practiced with hip-hop and breakbeats, pulling records from his father’s collection to scratch with. Sometimes a little too enthusiastically — an original pressing of Electric Ladyland didn’t survive.
And as is typical for Elrik: when he dives into something, he goes all in.
His snowboarding career — for years his number one — made way for DJing. What began as passion grew into work. From jazz festivals to club nights, from practice sessions to international sets. Always in his own way: eclectic, curious, with heart and soul.
Records came and went. The collection grew. But he was never a collector in the classic sense. Rarity meant little to him.
What matters is what a record does to you. What you hear, what you feel, what you remember.
What music tells you
A record sounds different from a playlist. You hold it. Slide it from the sleeve. Lower the needle. And then you listen. No shuffle. No rush. Just sound and you.
For Elrik, that’s where the difference lies.
In the ritual. In the space music takes up when you allow it in. An album isn’t a collection of tracks — it’s a story. And every story asks for time.
His record shelf isn’t a museum filled with trophies.
It’s a landscape of memories. Of choices. Of curiosity.
Not to own, but to explore again and again.
What’s still to come
Some things don’t need to be kept to yourself to truly be yours. Music is one of them.
For Elrik, it’s not about what he has, but about what he will still discover. A forgotten voice, a new groove, a record that suddenly hits home. You never know what will cross your path.
And that’s exactly what makes it so beautiful.
At Vinyleers, we share that sense of wonder. Not to hold on to what you already know, but to move with what makes itself heard. To share. To spin. To feel.
We keep listening. To music. To each other. And what we find, we pass on.
