Stephen Coates is a composer and music producer. He came across the subject of the X-Ray recordings when travelling to Russia to perform as The Real Tuesday Weld over the last six years. A graduate of the Royal College of Art, he is particularly interested in the interaction between music and culture.

In 2010, Stephen wrote and presented an eight part radio documentary series for Resonance Fm on Sounds of propaganda and the Cold War investigating the way music and audio was used for political purposes in the West and the Soviet countries. With Paul Heartfield he has been researching and interviewing the story of the X-Ray recordings in Russia researching as part of a series of projects on Soviet musical history..