LODENICE, Czech Republic — Zdenek Pelc was not exactly a visionary. He did not really foresee, a generation ago, that vinyl records would one day make a return from near-extinction.

    But he was smart enough to keep a vinyl record factory here, a relic of the Communist era, through all those years when albums gave way to CDs and then to iTunes and streaming, and to be ready when vinyl suddenly got hot again.

    And that is why this village of 1,800, nestled in a lush furl of the Bohemian hills, improbably finds itself the world’s leader in the production of vinyl albums.




posted 3178 days ago