This man made a map of the USA just using vinyl

I’ve been a hoarder and collector of records, badges, t-shirts, music papers, even record store bags, for as long as I can remember. I started by making portraits of my favourite music artists in their own vinyl and maps seemed like a natural step – defining a country by the music and songs that it inspires.

I started by collecting songs with titles that mentioned tube stations. As the collection grew I realised I could construct a working tube map from them and have so far completed seven tube maps called the Going Underground series. I then completed a series of maps of the UK – titled Hitsville UK, after The Clash song – before attempting the US map, which became Hitsville USA.

The biggest part of creating each piece is searching for those 50 records – a far harder task than I’d originally thought but very rewarding. The records range from the obvious, such as Massachusetts by the Bee Gees to the more arcane and obscure. such as Kentucky Highway by Cyclops Eye. All the records are varied in genre and style are very much a musical road trip across the states.

The original thought was that I would use my own personal record collection as my source material but I soon realised I had too much of a personal connection to it. So it’s a case of trawling second hand records shops, records fairs, charity shops and of course the internet. For the past year I’ve been collecting records with New York place names in their title and have just completed a map of the New York Subway – Harlem to South Ferry.