Misery is a popular indie game with over 250,000 sales set in a post-apocalyptic version of mid-century Russia.

When I was tasked with creating some music for it, I began researching what people actually listened to in the Soviet Union after WWII. That’s when I discovered “bone records” or “ribs”: smuggled Western songs that were secretly cut onto discarded X-ray films using scavenged, improvised record-cutters. These fragile bootlegs circulated through an underground market and became a striking symbol of Soviet musical counterculture.