Music store squirrels away indie secrets

SHAWN CHENG/YH

Secret Sounds is the music store I hoped to find during my first week in New Haven. Located just beyond the corner of York and Chapel since it opened in late October, it's a prototypical underground music store—intimate and slightly hidden due to its location in the back of the Sole Mates shoe store at 166 York St. Run by Chris Rasmussen, a knowledgeable veteran of the music business, Secret Sounds eschews traditional major label titles to focus on indie and import recordings. This formula will delight indie rockers frustrated with Cutler's mainstream selection.

Rasmussen's love for music drives Secret Sounds. He has spent his life selling records, managing bands, and immersing himself in all things musical. He runs Bridgeport-based Secret 7 Records and manages the Butterflies of Love, a Secret 7 band. After running a store in Athens, Ga., he came north in 1990 and opened Secret Sounds in Bridgeport. He soon developed a loyal base of customers, many of whom drove half an hour or more to shop at his store, along with a thriving mail-order business that Rasmussen estimates accounts for half of the store's sales. Despite this success, he hopes moving to New Haven will draw more foot traffic, especially given Secret Sounds' proximity to Yale.

Secret Sounds' main draw is an extensive independent and import selection. I felt a sense of sweet familiarity as I flipped past names I hadn't seen in a record store since before September: Gastr Del Sol, St. Etienne, John Cale, and Add N to (X). The stock is about half vinyl, which makes for a range of relatively cheap EPs and singles for neophytes who want to experiment with unfamiliar artists. I picked up Sonic Youth's recent Goodbye Twentieth Century, the fourth collection of avant garde compositional works in the group's Musical Perspectives series at $18.95 for a double-CD, and Versus' Dead Leaves on CD for $12.95—reasonable prices for domestic recordings. Vinyl or CD imports range from $15 to $30. Addition-ally, Secret Sounds will special order anything that they don't have.

Rasmussen himself is another reason to check out Secret Sounds. He's extremely knowledgeable about music, and he is happy to answer questions, whether about the store or music in general. Paying for my discs, I noticed a copy of John Cale's new book, What's Welsh for Zen, sitting above the register. I asked him about the book, and we launched into a brief but interesting discussion about Cale, a musician most recognized for co-founding the Velvet Underground with Lou Reed. Rasmussen removed the plastic wrap from What's Welsh for Zen and showed me a reproduction of a ticket to a Cale show he organized in 1980.

But Secret Sounds won't delight the average music lover. The store carries little mainstream music, no classical or jazz, and only a few rap titles. "As bands become more popular, we sell less of their records," Rasmussen explained. If your sonic menu consists of Dave Matthews, Top 40, and MTV, Secret Sounds won't satisfy your taste. This store isn't for you, and it doesn't want to be.

The beauty of Secret Sounds lies in that fact. It's an outlet for the sonically adventurous, for people who care deeply about a musical niche that most of the world never hears. To Yale's scattered and long-deprived indie rockers, experimental music devotees, and collectors, the arrival of Secret Sounds should be cause for celebration.

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