Music has been at the centre of everything for as long as I can remember. Rock bands as a kid, rap, electronic production — it was always there, running alongside whatever else was happening. Everything else orbited around it.

For years I channelled that into labels. In 2019, after a joint project with friends ran its course — three people, three strong visions, no wrong answers, just different directions — I started spclnch (Spacelunch) on my own. Dub techno and ambient, a comic universe at its core, a very specific idea of what good music looks like on wax. Over time, taste expands. In 2022 that led to Chippy Chasers label — different sound, broader palette, same approach.

In the summer of 2024, Kate — my wife — and I launched the online store. Shortly after, I was made redundant from my job as a product designer. The quiet that followed gave me space to think — and somewhere in that space I made a plan.

Labels are about depth — the artists you work with, the sound you build, the vision you hold. But the world of music is wider than any one label. There are records I didn't make and artists I didn't sign who deserve to be heard. A physical store felt like the right place to bring all of that together. To curate not just what I release, but what I believe in.

In September 2025, Chippy Chasers Record Store opened on Papestraat 16 in The Hague.

Something happens when someone walks in, flips through a record, and finds exactly what they were looking for — or something they weren't. People are sometimes genuinely surprised a shop this specific exists in a city like this. So am I, a little.

Good music changes how you move through the world. How you talk to people, how you think, what you notice. That's not a small thing. It's why this exists.

— Thomas, founder