For every independent label in Beirut, Cairo, Amman or Ramallah that wants to put a record out on wax, the process has always run through someone else's continent. There's no pressing plant anywhere in the Middle East or North Africa. Every lacquer gets cut, every disc gets pressed, thousands of kilometres away, in Europe or the US, then shipped back at a cost that lands squarely on the label and the buyer.
Makbas Records wants to end that. The Jordanian independent label is opening what it says will be the region's first vinyl pressing plant, MAKBAS, out of a warehouse in Amman in early 2027.
Why build a pressing plant instead of just releasing records?
Because the maths of pressing overseas has gotten worse, not better. Makbas Records co-founder Aseel Barghuthi, who runs the project alongside Saeed Abu-Jaber, told Mixmag the current setup leaves regional music stranded on the wrong side of the shipping bill: "Today, music from the region gets pressed on vinyl continents away and seldom makes its way back to regional fanbases. MAKBAS is here to help change that."
That round trip is where the cost compounds. "By the time the records arrive with the artist or label, they arrive at a steep premium," Barghuthi said. "Most of the time that cost gets reflected in the price of the record, and that can be a deterrent to someone who would otherwise want to buy this format." A plant inside the region cuts out the freight, the customs delay and the markup that a Jordanian or Egyptian label currently has no way around.
What will the plant actually be able to do?
MAKBAS is starting modest but complete. The warehouse operation will handle black and coloured vinyl pressing, sleeve design, distribution and merchandise, aimed squarely at MENA-based labels first but open to international clients too. Capacity at launch sits around 1,000 records a day, which is a real but entry-level run rate for a new plant, and Makbas says expansion is already planned once the line is proven.
That capacity matters beyond Jordan's own scene. A local plant means a label in Beirut or Dubai no longer needs a minimum order large enough to justify shipping from a European plant, which has long locked smaller regional imprints out of vinyl entirely.
"MAKBAS is here to help change that."
Why it matters
Vinyl manufacturing has stayed concentrated in Europe, the US and parts of East Asia for decades, even as pressing demand and genuinely independent scenes have grown everywhere else. A plant in Amman doesn't just save Jordanian labels money, it gives the entire MENA underground a reason to release on wax at all, and a template other regions without pressing infrastructure, from West Africa to Southeast Asia, can now point to.
What we think
This is the kind of infrastructure story that matters more than another release does. Pressing capacity, not streaming numbers, has quietly decided which scenes get to have a physical culture and which don't. Amman getting there first, ahead of bigger regional music markets, says a lot about who's actually solving problems instead of waiting for someone else to.
