the arm comes down slow. you do this by hand and the hand is steady because it has done this before and the wrist remembers the angle the eyes have to make to set the tip on the outer track and not the label.
the contact is a click in the room before it is a click in the speakers. the room hears it first. then the cone catches up — a dry crackle that is not the music but is the needle telling you it has arrived.
half a second of nothing-yet. dust against diamond. the groove is empty here but the spiral knows it is going somewhere; you can hear the groove sounding like a groove before anything is in it.
then the kickdrum lands and the room changes weight. the crackle does not go away. it goes under. it is in the floor of every song you have ever played this way. you only notice it when the song has not started.
— cc