Leo Records: Strictly for Our Friends

In 1973, Leonid Samuilovich flees the USSR and lands a job at the BBC in London. Five years later, radio host Alexei Leonidov starts releasing clandestine recordings smuggled from totalitarian countries via intricate cloak-and-dagger operations. Today, 86-year-old music producer Leo Feigin sits on top of over 30.000 LPs, contemplating on the meaning of his work amidst the grim outlook of new Iron Curtains.
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Leo Records: Strictly for Our Friends

I n 1973, Leonid Samuilovich flees the USSR and lands a job at the BBC in London. Five years later, radio host Alexei Leonidov starts releasing clandestine recordings smuggled from totalitarian countries via intricate cloak-and-dagger operations. Today, 86-year-old music producer Leo Feigin sits on top of over 30.000 LPs, contemplating on the meaning of his work amidst the grim outlook of new Iron Curtains. Leo Records is a symbol of musical resistance against authoritarian regimes and a pioneer of what we now know as avant-garde. It contains one of the most courageous acts in recent music history, from the Ganelin Trio, Sergei Kuryokhin and Pop Mechanica to Sun Ra, Anthony Braxton and the Art Ensemble of Chicago. It is the story of a man who single-handedly liberated an entire generation of illegal artists, musical misfits and Leningrad cowboys. It is the jazz story of modern times.