site.btaBulgaria's First Vinyl Pressing Plant since 90s Goes into Operation, Only One on Balkans

No vinyl records have been produced in Bulgaria since 1994. This is about to change in the coming months, as in 2025, the first vinyl pressing plant in the country since Balkanton will begin operations. It will be the only one in the Balkans. In an interview with BTA, one of the people behind the factory, Iliya Grigorov, explained why now is the time for the revival of this business, the interest from other Balkan countries, and the concept behind the project.

The plant, located in a village near Sofia, will start working on orders from February, with a capacity to produce up to 20,000 vinyl records per month. 'There is a lot of interest from the Balkans, and I am not even sure how we will manage at the beginning – we will give our best. Many Bulgarian artists also want to work with us,' Grigorov said.

Who’s Iliya Grigorov: Best known by his stage name Grigovor, he is one of the successful contemporary artists on the Bulgarian music scene as part of the Sofia-based hip-hop band So Called Crew. In addition, Iliya is Creative Director at the Bulgarian Office of the advertising agency DDB Worldwide Communications Group and Coordinator at Monte Music Ltd. - one of the leading music companies in the country.

Just a month ago, So Called Crew celebrated their 13th anniversary with a sold out concert featuring six support acts in Sofia. Despite the success, Grigovor’s down-to-earth nature shows quickly  - he is easy to talk to, his ringback tone is 50 Cent's In The Club, and as serious as his new project might be, he still avoids taking himself too seriously. The name of the factory is further proof of that - Rakamakafon. 

"We really wanted to be named Sofia Press, but that was impossible as there is already a company with that name. We decided it should be something funny because everyone has loud names and we did not want to sound as heavy because we are people who like DIY stuff, we are a bit more punk. We know what we are doing but at the same time we don't. It is very scary and hard, but somehow when we think of the name we remember to not take ourselves very seriously," Grigorov explained.

The Vinyl Revival

Since 2007, the vinyl market growth has been steady all over the globe. In 2015, UK started its first Official Vinyl Albums Chart after LPs enjoyed unbroken growth for seven years. In 2022, Recording Industry Association of America reported that vinyl sales surpassed CDs for the first time since 1987. According to France’s inter-professional organization which protects the interests of the local record industry, SNEP, sales volumes and revenues generated from vinyl records tripled between 2016 and 2021. Germany, China, Japan, Brazil, the list goes on. Grigorov thinks Bulgaria is no exception and was also hit by the vinyl revival.

“I do not know if you have noticed, but there are more and more record stores, even gas stations are selling records. Many people in the industry never expected this to happen, and sales are growing exponentially every year,” he noted.

So, what is behind this trend?

According to Grigorov, in Bulgaria, the new wave was initially tied more to hipster culture - buying and collecting vinyl records became a matter of status. However, over time, it grew into something more.

“If we look at the music eras from a bird’s-eye view, after compact discs in the '90s and the subsequent global music piracy and internet music in general, I think that at some point in the mid-2010s, people once again felt this craving for a physical copy. But not a CD, as the CD format has already gone a bit out of fashion."

“The return of vinly records has happened many times over the years. I feel like they do not have a specific era.  In the '50s, '60s, '70s, and even the '80s, there was no other way to listen to music except on records and cassette tapes – that is what our parents did. But cassette tapes were recorded from vinyls. Back then, it was the only way to listen to music. Now, I feel that it is more of a necessary way to listen to music, because digital streaming has been the norm for quite some time now.”

The 30-year Drought

Over some 40 years, Balkanton released over 7,500 unique records (not the number of copies), states a bTV study published in 2022. The music company also processed orders from abroad. However, after the end of its production operations in the 1990s, there was a dry period for this type of culture in the Balkans. 

When trends reversed and vinyls started to come back into fashion, Bulgarian and Balkan artists who wanted to release their music in this format were forced to work with factories in Western Europe. Something that not only takes more time and money, but also harms the environment through constant shipments.

"We believe that Bulgaria and the Balkans should have such a place so that people can be one step away from their final product. We have spoken to many people from the Balkans who want to come and see the factory. Somehow that has been missing here for the last 30 years," Grigorov stressed. 

He recalled that the only attempt to open a vinyl pressing plant in this period was made in Novi Sad, Serbia but it quickly ended in bankruptcy. "The founder told too many of his friends that they could give him the money later and then somehow he abandoned the idea," Iliya added.

There is a factory in Turkiye that processes orders for another much larger European one. “It is a bit difficult to get in touch with them, so we thought that here would be a very good place for this plant, because there is just no other around and all those people in the Balkans that are pouring out music should have a place to release it... Especially independent artists who are doing a few units – we would like to target our services to them.”

Supporting the Local Music Scene

While Rakamakafon will not turn down orders for 2,000 and 5,000 units, the main target clientele is different:

"We really want to pay attention to the people who are releasing fewer units but releasing consistently. More independent music. There are an awful lot of artists, writers and labels in Serbia, North Macedonia, Croatia, Romania and Greece - it's full of releases. We do not want them to be sent for pressing to Holland, we want them to be sent here."

The plant could prove particularly important for smaller artists.

"I did a rough calculation that 1 million streams on audio platforms make the same money as selling 200-250 vinyl records. There are a lot of bands that have 400 hardcore fans but will not generate 1 million streams on Spotify. We would rather work with people like that. We want to prioritize people who make more alternative music that may not break out as much on a digital level. That way we would incentivize people to keep making music as well. This is very important for the Balkans - we have amazing things to preserve and the best method of preservation is a physical copy that lasts 200 years.

Grigorov also plans to release some of his favorite Bulgarian albums that have never been released on vinyl - Gospozha Emiliya by Klas and Plus by Animatsionerite. 

"We have ambitions to do a compilation of old Bulgarian songs at some point, because I do not think there are many releases like that. There are a lot of English, Dutch, American labels that do compilations with old socialist music. There are some from Hungary, there are some from former Yugoslavia. Someone has selected 20 tracks that are very funky. We also want to make those, but we still have to contact the rights holders, producers... It will be a very difficult process, but we really want to make it happen."

Iliya is working on the factory with his friends Jane Vasilev (engineer) and Kosta Hantov (architect). Despite throwing themselves into something new and in his words "difficult and scary", the overwhelming feeling is excitement. "We decided to go into the factory together because all three of us have a passion for music and we want to do this for the next 50 years."