From the South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Best Record Store

October 18 2006

Sweat Records
5501 N.E. Second Ave. (inside Churchill's Pub), Miami, 305/758-5862, ext. 5, Sweatrecordsmiami.com

Owner Lauren Reskin's brain works like the Encyclopedia Britannica of indie music but without the High Fidelity-like snobbery that can make shopping for tunes intimidating elsewhere. This in turn renders her homegrown record store the perfect retail operation. During the 2005 hurricane season, Sweat lost its downtown Miami location and was forced to move to a smaller space on the back patio of Churchill's Pub. While it might have seemed like an odd place for a storefront, it now makes perfect sense. The store specializes in hip-hop, noise and punk CDs and carries a decent collection of vinyl records, imports and reissues of hard-to-find classics. Sweat also stocks titles by big-name artists for pop fans interested in bucking the chain-store and online-music systems. But don't just take our word for it; Spin magazine recently crowned Sweat "Miami's beating heart of youth culture."