In 1950s Russia, where vinyl was scarce, music fans salvaged discarded radiographs from hospital waste bins, using a special device to press the grooves of forbidden jazz and rock ‘n’ roll bootlegs into the surface of the thick plastic.
The radiograph ‘records’ were cut into a rough disc shape with manicure scissors and a hole was burned with a cigarette. According to author Anya von Bremzen, “you’d have Elvis on the lungs, Duke Ellington on Aunt Masha’s brain scan — forbidden Western music captured on the interiors of Soviet citizens.”
