There are lots of 18-year-olds who are really, really into music. But how many of those teens open a vinyl record store?
It should be noted that Julian Seth-Wong’s tastes are mature beyond his years. Indeed, the Tonality Records owner got hooked on vinyl by listening to jazz as a child — specifically, he says, after hearing Time Out by The Dave Brubeck Quartet. He then discovered Rotate This, Grasshopper Records and other record-store standbys in Toronto and, after much encouragement by friends and family, decided to open his own vinyl haven in 2014 on the up-and-coming stretch of Dundas Street West just east of Roncesvalles Avenue.
“Tonality is really just a collection of my favourite stuff,” Julian says, gesturing at his neatly arranged record bins. “I originally planned to attend college to study classical piano, but realized it wasn’t something I wanted to focus on for a career. I love records and I still wanted music to be a big part of my life, and I realized that it’s hard to find a lot of the stuff I like in Toronto. So I decided to create a specialty store to curate records by people who do it for the passion of it.”
