THE MAP
Every vinyl destination inside the greater Cologne footprint. Zoom in to see individual venues.
Cologne is the birthplace of Kompakt, and it still shows.
Cologne is one of the founding cities of European electronic music — Kompakt, Sonig, A-Musik, all born here. The Belgisches Viertel and Ehrenfeld neighbourhoods carry the current scene: Kompakt's own shop, a-Musik, Groove Attack, Underdog and a growing second-hand corridor.
The strength is minimal, techno, ambient and left-field electronic — plus a serious jazz and krautrock second-hand catalogue. Odonien and Gewölbe run the after-hours listening. Compact city, dense weekend.
THE FIVE ROOMS
The label's own shopfront — minimal, techno, ambient. Global-influence label, still a Cologne room.
Experimental, minimal, avant-garde — one of Germany's finest curated counters for outsider music.
Hip-hop, funk, soul, rare grooves — a Cologne institution with a distribution arm attached.
House, techno, disco generalist — the current selector's counter for the corridor.
Small, sharp, curated new-releases wall — the tastemaker's picks in a five-block corridor.