LONDISC

Londisc was an Argentine record label in Buenos Aires that grew out of the Radio León Studio, founded in 1930 by Jewish immigrant Enrique León Wlosko.

Initially a radio and recording shop that issued 10-inch 78-rpm discs under the “Radio León” name with R.L. catalogue numbers, it evolved into the Londisc label, often combining the two names on its labels. Londisc specialised in Jewish repertoire for the local immigrant community: mainly Yiddish songs, but also Hebrew, Russian and Armenian material.

It acted both as publisher and producer, selecting repertoire and artists and renting major studios such as RCA Victor and Odeón for the sessions. Its catalogue included prominent figures of Yiddish and Jewish music such as Solomon Stramer, Menashe Oppenheim, Pinjos Borenstein, Benzion Witler, Shiffra Lerer, Sarah Gorby, Henry Gerro and conductors like Hermann Ludwig and George Andreani.

From the 1930s through at least the late 1950s Londisc issued a substantial series of 10-inch 78-rpm records marked “Industria Argentina” in the R.L. series, covering Yiddish theatre songs, synagogue and liturgical pieces, folk dances and some “ethnic” or Eastern European-style accordion music. In the 1960s and 1970s the company shifted toward vinyl LPs, still under names such as “Editora Londisc Radio León”, and released Israeli and Jewish-Argentine artists, including Yaffa Yarkoni and later projects such as Manguinot Bashirá.

Today the Londisc / Radio León catalogue, preserved in archives like IWO in Buenos Aires and several North American sound collections, is one of the most important audio records of Jewish musical life in Latin America.

It is unrelated to the later British reggae label of similar name.