By Nestor CASTIGLIONE

“The past is never dead,” William Faulkner once famously wrote. “It’s not even past.” Never was that truer than in the record business.

CDs, though still the leader in physical music sales, have seen their appeal wane in the last several years, especially competing among the young  streaming music services and online shops (to say nothing of torrenting sites like the recently shuttered What.CD) that allow customers to download mp3 and FLAC files. Nevertheless, the LP – a format that publicly debuted in 1947 – has managed to hang in there.

Not only has it survived, but starting about a decade ago it has become a booming business for the music industry.

According to independent record store Amoeba Hollywood, LP sales account for 36% of its total sales – a margin that has yet to peak in the eyes of some analysts. Moreover, new record stores specializing in LPs have sprouted across the country – a remarkable comeback for local businesses that once upon a time had been trampled underfoot by multinational chains like Tower Records and Virgin Megastore,  which themselves were forced to close due to plummeting music sales.

With sales of the format  increasing each year, the “vinyl renaissance” shows no signs of abating. It was a phenomenon that drew writer/director K.L. Poore’s attention.

“I’ve been a record nut all of my life,” he said in an email interview earlier this week. “Even while they slowly faded away during the CD era they were still my format of choice if available. But I had no real idea that there were people out there like me.”

It wasn’t until a few years ago that he realized that he was only one of many whose attachment to the LP had never abated.

“Approximately five years ago one of our producers took me to my first Record Store Day,” Poore recalled. “People like me were lined up around the block at the record store. I turned to [him] and said, ‘This is amazing, this should be our next project.’”

That project, Poore’s documentary “Long Playing,” will be debuting this Sunday at The Cinefamily. Billed as “exploration of the love of music and vinyl,” the film will be screened for free to the general public.

“I didn’t set out to make the ultimate documentary about vinyl,” Poore continued. “I set out to let people know there were people like us out there. [People] who love music passionately, who love engaging with their music in this medium. My goal was to say that we may have many different opinions on the questions asked in the movie, but we are all together in the end. To quote Frank Zappa, ‘Music is the best.’”

There’s also no mistaking that for Poore and many others, vinyl, too, remains the best

“[LPs] demand a commitment from the listener. It’s a very active process: from putting the record on the turntable, to sitting down and reading the liner notes, to checking out the art work. It’s fully engaging to the music lover in a way that music lovers began to lose with CDs and have fully lost with streaming. In ‘Long Playing’ we interview people from ages 13 to 70 and you can tell they love music and the format.”

Then he paused and struck a note of caution.

“That being said, if music itself continues to be looked at as a commodity, we may end up with a shortage of people who find magic in music.”

It’s an outcome that Poore hopes his documentary will help to prevent.

“Long Playing” is screening Sunday, Dec. 4 at The Cinefamily in Los Angeles (611 N. Fairfax Ave.). For more information, go online to https://www.eventbrite.com/e/longplaying-documentary-screening-tickets-29061933024?aff=efbeventtix.

You may also call The Cinefamily at (323)330-4412.

  Nestor CASTIGLIONE