Sony Music, one of the three biggest record companies in the world, announced on Thursday that it will start producing its own vinyl releases again for the first time in 28 years.
A Japanese factory south-west of Tokyo will be responsible for production, expected to begin in March 2018.
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Sony installed the record-cutting equipment at a Tokyo recording studio back in February, however the process of producing vinyl records is not simple.
Nikkei, the Asia-focused English-language newspaper reported:
Cutting is a delicate process, with the quality of sound affected by the depth and angle of the grooves, and Sony is scrambling to bring in old record engineers to pass on their knowledge.
In the mid 1970s, Japan produced nearly 200m vinyl records annually, according to the country’s recording industry association.
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By GlobalDataAnd yet, years later old-fashioned black plastic records are back in demand, despite the rise of digital music streaming platforms such as Spotify.
In the UK, sales of vinyl records at the end of 2016 outpaced digital music sales for the first time.
Japanese sales of vinyl records last year jumped up to 799,000 units — eight times more than in 2010.
This year, global vinyl revenue is expected to hit $1bn, the BBC reported.
Sony has not yet revealed which titles it will be pressing in vinyl.
