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X-RAY AUDIO

The Strange Story of Soviet Music 'On the Bone'

Ed. Stephen Coates
Hardback, Full Colour.

With over 40 extraordinary images of Bone records by photographer Paul Heartfield, essays and interviews.
160PP, 220mm X 235mm

Strange Attractor Press

Voted one of the top 25 essential books for record collectors by Vinyl Factory

Available from the usual online outlets or order special edition and signed copies HERE

SUPPORTED BY ARTS COUNCIL ENGLAND

In the cold war era, the Soviet recording industry and permissible musical repertoire were ruthlessly controlled by the State. But a secret and risky subculture of bootleg recordings arose. Incredibly, bootleggers built homemade recording machines and found an extraordinary way to copy banned gramophone records – they used X-Rays clandestinely obtained from hospitals

X-Ray Audio: The Strange Story of Soviet Music on the Bone tells the secret history of these ghostly records and of the people who made, bought and sold them.  Lavishly illustrated with images of discs collected in Russia, it is a unique story of forbidden culture, bootleg technology and human endeavour. Contributions from Russian musical commentators and interviews, including one with the last bootlegger standing, set the scene for the intersection of ideological, technological and historical events that created this brief Samizdat musical culture.

In a time when songs can be copied in an instant and when streaming services provide virtually infinite choice and access, X-Ray Audio provides a poignant reminder of the immense cultural value of music and the extraordinary lengths people to which people will go to listen to what they love.

EDITED BY
Stephen Coates 

CONTRIBUTORS:

Paul Heartfield, Maksim Kravchinsky, Sukhdev Sandhu

INTERVIEWEES:

Artyemi Troistsky, Aleks Kolkowski,  Rudy Fuchs, Kolya Vasin

ORDER HERE