STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Nostalgic music-lovers are increasingly returning to old-style vinyl records to hear artists the same way they discovered them years ago – but they may be startled by a new experiment in Sweden.
Instead of old crooners, artist Alexander Hoglund has put the sound of effervescent pain-killers on vinyl after a six-month creative experiment to find the perfect fizz.
Hoglund ordered tablets from around the world, popping them into glasses and selecting a top ten whose sounds were put onto clear vinyl to represent water.
The best sound? A German pain-killer, Hoglund reckons.
“I started by listening to a large amount of effervescent tablets and found the ten best that I think have the best resonance and funniest sound,” he told news agency TT.
“I had to experiment with different types of glass, different amounts of water, different recording atmospheres to find the best prerequisites for recording this little sound.”
Fizzy tablets go perfectly with old-style records, according to Hoglund. “It adds warmth and fills the room in a different way when you listen to it on vinyl.”
The recording mixes comic and sad undertones.
“For me there is something humorous and very ordinary in the noise of the dissolving Treo or Alvedon, but there can also be something very serious in it,” Hoglund said.
“For example, if one suffers from chronic disease or something like that, it has a different meaning.”
His record is part of a renaissance for vinyl. Sales have soared in recent years despite the outdated technology.
Reporting by Simon Johnson; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne