Wacky World of Choc Wednesdays: Chocolate LPs
Over the past few years, a relatively quiet (ha!) trend has developed in the chocolate world, mostly as a collaboration between chocolatiers and indie electronica/industrial rock/experimental pop musicians: chocolate LPs.
These are vinyl records, minus the vinyl, made out of chocolate. They’d be sorta neat on their own (there’s something so irreverent about biting into a fragile object in which much great art has been encoded), but what makes these chocolate records really special is that they actually play music. As in, you can place them on a record player, drop the needle, and then hear sound. Now that is awesome!
Here’s one example, from a charming maker in Berlin, Germany:
And here’s another, where a Fife, Scotland-based chocolatier, Ben Milne, prepared a chocolate LP single for his friends in the band FOUND. The single is “Anti Climb Paint,” and the chocolatey end result plays the song recognizably:
A gem of a quote from Ben: “I heard that vinyl is on the increase and that CDs are on their way out, so chocolate records could be part of a resurgence and people getting their record players out of their attics.” From his lips to God’s ears! (Or Brooklyn!) Also, don’t miss the dreamy video for the song, performed in the Fisher & Donaldson Bakery where Ben works, and depicting a stylized (fictional) making of the chocolate single.
Finally, a team of skeptics from Kerrang! Podcasts went from naysayers to yaysayers when American band Innerpartysystem sent them a chocolate single to try out. Turns out, these records do best when fresh from the refrigerator.
Personally, I’d love a chocolate single of “In a Gadda da Vida,” from Iron Butterfly. My dad, who has the baddest music taste of anyone I know, taught me how to rock out with this song blasting on his record player, way back before the days of cassette tapes, CDs, mp3s, and YouTube. The original version of the song is a little over 17 minutes long, by which point we would most definitely need a snack. Yes, please.
comments
Leave a Reply
-
About
Bittersweet Notes is an open source research project on chocolate, culture, and the politics of food. I invite you to join me as I explore the story of chocolate and the life stories of those involved with chocolate at its many stages of production and consumption.
-
Stay connected
