Stories of the secret underground Cold War-era Soviet music subculture
that distributed forbidden music on used hospital x-rays.
During the Cold War era, the songs that Soviet citizens could listen to
were ruthlessly controlled by the state. But a secret underground
subculture of music lovers and bootleggers defied the censors, building
recording machines and making their own records of forbidden jazz, rock
'n' roll, and Russian music, cut onto used hospital x-ray film. Bone
Music is the follow up the acclaimed X-Ray Audio: The Strange History
of Soviet Music on the Bone, delving deeper into a forgotten era when
being a music fan could mean a lengthy prison sentence, or worse.
Who made these records? Why did they do it and how was it even possible?
Foregrounding interviews and oral testimonies gathered over five years,
Bone Music presents the stories of the original bone bootleggers,
their customers, musicians, record collectors, and commentators, evoking
a spirited resistance to a repressive culture of prohibition and
punishment. It reveals that although Western jazz and rock'n'roll were
important to the Stilyagi youth culture, the true rebel music was that
of forbidden Russian emigres, gypsy romances, and criminal tunes: the
soul songs of a society brutally cut off from its culture.
Richly illustrated with dozens of new images of Soviet x-ray discs and
sound letters, Bone Music details how the bootleggers worked,
outlining the technical precedents of their techniques, situating their
discs in a revised history of recorded media, and bringing a wealth of
compelling new detail.
