Tucked into a stretch of Messerole Street in Brooklyn, Human Head Records has built its reputation less as a conventional retail storefront and more as a listening room for people who still believe a record store should feel like a clubhouse. The shop trades in vinyl records spanning house, disco, techno, funk, soul, and the wider spectrum of dance and DJ culture that its founders clearly live and breathe, alongside used and rare pressings that turn over quickly enough to reward regulars who stop in often. Human Head keeps genuinely unusual hours for a specialty retailer: the doors are open 365 days a year, noon to eight every single day, meaning there is no closed sign to plan around, whether a customer wanders in on a Tuesday afternoon or a holiday weekend. That kind of always-on availability signals a shop built around its neighborhood rather than a nine-to-five retail calendar.
Beyond the Messerole Street storefront in Brooklyn, Human Head also operates a second location on East 83rd Street on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, giving the brand a foothold on both sides of the East River and a broader base of crate diggers to draw from. The Brooklyn shop sits within an area of North Brooklyn that has become one of the city’s most concentrated pockets of independent record stores, bars, and studio spaces, and Human Head has carved out its own identity within that scene rather than blending into it. Staff picks, new arrivals, and reissues rotate through the bins regularly, and the shop maintains an active presence on Discogs, listing inventory for collectors who are searching for specific pressings rather than just browsing in person.
What sets Human Head apart from a typical used record shop is Human Head Radio, the label’s own ongoing series of DJ mixes and podcasts hosted on Mixcloud, where the people behind the counter share the same sets and selections that shape what ends up in the bins. It is a small but telling detail: a record store that broadcasts its own taste rather than simply reselling other people’s collections, extending the shop’s identity past its four walls and into headphones anywhere in the world. On Instagram, where the shop has built a following north of 26,000, the account has been active since March 2020, posting new arrivals, restocks, and glimpses of the radio show consistently enough to keep both locations feeling connected as one ongoing project rather than two separate storefronts.
For anyone searching for a Brooklyn record store that treats vinyl as a living, evolving culture rather than a nostalgia act, Human Head Records offers daily hours, a rotating selection of dance and DJ-focused vinyl, a second Manhattan outpost, and its own radio show to match. Visitors can drop by the Messerole Street shop any day of the year between noon and eight, browse the Discogs listings ahead of a visit to check availability, or simply follow the shop’s mixes online to get a sense of the sound before ever setting foot inside. Human Head Records is a Brooklyn and Manhattan vinyl record shop open 365 days a year that pairs a curated selection of dance, house, and DJ culture records with its own Human Head Radio mix series on Mixcloud.
